Owls From Ginny
by Adthor
Summary: Ginny is lonely, and missing her brothers at Hogwarts. When George tells her that Harry is also lacking friends, Ginny decides to write to him. The two children become pen pals, and firm friends. Harry's going to need all the friends he can get, because ripples from this small change are about to make his difficult life even harder.
1. The First Letter

Harry Potter. She had actually seen the real Harry Potter! But she hadn't even recognized him at the time. He hadn't looked anything like she had expected. Sure, he'd had the black hair, and she was pretty sure she'd seen green eyes, but beyond the most superficial details, Harry Potter did not look as the Boy Who Lived was supposed to look. He was scrawny, not strong and handsome, he had seemed shy and afraid, rather than confident and heroic, and instead of showing off some impressive magical creature or artifact, he hadn't even known how to get onto Platform 9 3/4. But, if the twins were to be believed, and Ginny was good enough at recognizing their pranks to be pretty sure this wasn't one of them, the boy had the scar that definitively marked him as the real Harry Potter. Ginny wasn't sure what to think.

Learning that her idol was a whole lot more ordinary than she had previously been told could have made Ginny feel disappointed. But she found that her brief glimpse of the real Harry Potter had, if anything, left her more interested than ever in this famous first year. And now that she had the Burrow almost to herself, she had a lot of time to think about Harry Potter.

Now, more than ever, Ginny wanted to know what Harry Potter had been doing for the past ten years since his parents deaths. Who had he lived with? Why had he been alone at the platform? Why hadn't he known how to get to the Hogwarts Express? Why did he look like he hadn't been properly fed in weeks? What was he afraid of?

She tried to tell herself to just forget about Harry Potter. She supposed that she would see Harry Potter next year when she started at Hogwarts herself, but until then she still wasn't going to be able to answer her questions, and continuing to speculate would be a waste of time. She was ten now; she was going to start learning to be a real witch soon; she was too old for a childish crush on a boy she had only glimpsed once.

She tried to devote herself to other pursuits. She did her best to be a good girl and help her mother with the housework as much as she could, even though it was dreadfully dull. Her good behavior caused Mrs. Weasley to watch her a little less closely, giving her more freedom to practice flying and quidditch on stolen brooms. She went over the hill to visit her eccentric friend Luna Lovegood, and spent hours listening to her prattle about Crumple-Horned Snorlaks and other non-existent creatures.

But ultimately, none of these distractions could take her mind away from Harry Potter. Every night, alone in her room, Ginny's thoughts would stray back to the mysterious boy on Platform 9 3/4. She herself couldn't be sure why. Sometimes she was sure that it was just a silly crush of the sort that every girl would have on a boy as famous as the Boy Who Lived. Other times she felt that her attraction to him was really just curiosity; life could be so boring in the burrow, surely the mysterious childhood of Harry Potter was full of exciting adventures, and it would be thrilling to be one of the few people to know the true story. And sometimes, when she thought back to her brief glimpse of Harry Potter at King's Cross Station, she couldn't help but think that he looked like a boy who needed help, and all she wanted was to be able to help him.

She received her first owl from the twins on Wednesday. Fred told her that Ron had been sorted into Gryffindor—she was glad for him, she knew he had been afraid of getting Hufflepuff—and Harry Potter was in Gryffindor as well. Apparently he and Ron were already shaping up to be best mates. Ginny felt a bit jealous of her brother. What she wouldn't give for the chance to be best friends with Harry Potter!

Ginny wrote back to the twins quickly, sending a reply with the same school owl they had used. She wanted to thank them for keeping their promise to write, of course, but she also asked them for more details about Harry Potter, although she tried not to seem _too_ eager. She hated giving the Fred and George any more potential reasons to laugh at her, but they already knew she'd had a crush on him, and the potential to learn more about Harry was worth the small risk of embarrassment.

A reply from George arrived the very next day, but instead of the answers Ginny sought, it threw her thoughts back into turmoil.

 _Good to hear from you, Ginny, glad you're holding up alright. As for Harry Potter, we've decided that we've told you more than enough already. We refuse to become your spies at Hogwarts. Or anywhere else for that matter. If you're so curious about Harry, why are you using us as middlemen? Just write a letter to him directly! I'm sure he wouldn't mind another friend. He doesn't seem to have made any besides Ron. If you really want him to fall for you, you've got to catch him before any of the girls in his year do!_

Ginny couldn't tell if George was being serious. Her older brothers had always been overprotective of her, told her she was far too young to think about boys. She knew they were wrong about how ready she was to play quidditch, so she was pretty sure they were wrong about this too. But here was her brother encouraging her to write to a boy she had a crush on!

She wondered if it was a prank somehow. Surely Harry couldn't really be nearly friendless at Hogwarts. Ron wouldn't be the only one interested in being pals with a celebrity. The twins were just trying to get her to embarrass herself as she made a terrible first impression and Harry laughed at her letter. Maybe Harry already had a girlfriend, and the goal was to embarrass Harry as well as Ginny. Maybe the twins had secretly planted vanishing ink in her room and her letter would be a blank sheet of paper by the time it arrived at Hogwarts.

There were a million reasons not to trust the twins. Clearly the right thing to do was what she had been telling herself all week—just forget about Harry Potter and her silly crush. But just as before, Ginny couldn't be satisfied with telling herself that. She couldn't evade a question: What if this wasn't a prank? What if Harry really was having trouble making friends at Hogwarts. What if he was just as lonely as she was. If that was the case, it seemed like writing him a letter would indeed be a very good idea.

Just thinking about writing a letter to Harry Potter was both exciting and terrifying. The more she thought about it, the more Ginny was sure she couldn't really do it. She was usually a pretty spunky girl, but today she was feeling quite shy and timid. Imagine if Harry did laugh at her letter. All her brothers would see. The story would be told for years. Fred and George would be triumphant. She would never live it down. The twins had embarrassed her enough times already.

But then, she had another thought. What if this wasn't the prank she thought it was? The twins didn't know everything about her, but they still knew her pretty well. Better than Ron or Percy. They knew how embarrassed talking about Harry Potter made her. What if they were trying to get her not to write? Maybe they weren't pulling a prank, but trying to get her to stop thinking about Harry, to stop thinking about boys, just like her brothers had all always wanted. Maybe they were counting on her to be a coward.

As soon as she settled on this thought, Ginny's mind was made up. She was not a coward. She wasn't yet a Gryffindor, but she knew she was going to be one next year. She wouldn't let shyness about Harry Potter be an exception to her characteristic Gryffindor bravery. At this point, she didn't care whether it was the foolish recklessness of someone walking into a prank or the unexpected fearlessness of a chivalrous hero: She was going to write to Harry Potter.

As she sat down at her desk in her room and got out paper and a quill, she felt a little silly for being so dramatic and making such a big deal about this. It wasn't as if a single letter was so hard to write or would make a big difference in the grand scheme of her life. She couldn't get nervous now!

And so, in one burst of adrenaline, Ginny dashed out her first letter to Harry Potter:

 _Dear Harry,_

 _You don't know me yet, but I know you. We saw each other on Sunday at King's Cross Station. I wanted to get on the train and meet you then, but mum wouldn't let me. My name's Ginny. Ron might have told you I'm his little sister. I am his sister, but I'm not a little girl. I'm only a year younger than he is, and just as tall, not to mention better at Quidditch (even though he never wants to let me play). I'm sorry if I sound whiny. My brothers never take me seriously, because I'm the youngest, and I don't want them to give you a wrong impression of me._

 _I'm writing to you now because I'm really curious. I suppose you probably get too much of that, so I'm sorry if I'm bothering you by asking questions, but I've heard stories about you ever since I was actually a little girl, and nobody can agree on what happened to you after you killed You-Know-Who as a baby. So since my brothers never tell me anything, I want to hear it right from the source: What have you been doing for the past ten years? Why didn't you know how to get onto platform 9 3/4? Do you remember killing You-Know-Who?_

 _You don't have to answer all those questions if I'm annoying you. I would be really happy if you just wrote back. Now that Ron's at school with the rest of my brothers, I'm kind of lonely here. I can't talk to Mum and Dad like I can to someone my age._

 _Sorry again for bothering you. I hope that you're enjoying Hogwarts._

 _Your curious admirer,_

 _Ginny Weasley_

Reading over the hastily written text, Ginny hated it. She was sure it sounded hopelessly rude and immature, and that it would only make Harry Potter annoyed at her. She was very tempted to crumple up the letter and forget the whole thing.

But she knew she couldn't do that. She couldn't let her brothers, let her fears, beat her. Before she had the chance to second guess herself anymore, Ginny rolled up the letter, addressed it, and took it down to Errol to deliver. She was thankful that her mother was busy preparing dinner in the kitchen and therefore didn't overhear her talking to the family owl.

"Take this to Harry Potter. Try to give it to him when Ron's not around, if you can." she whispered. Nodding his head in what she hoped was understanding, Errol flew off. Ginny felt as if a weight had been lifted from her chest. She still wasn't sure whether she had made the right decision, but the matter was now out of her hands, it was too late to take back the letter now. And maybe, just maybe, knowing that she'd actually _done_ something would be enough to let her get her mind off of Harry Potter for a while. With genuine cheerfulness, she went and asked her mother if she needed any help preparing dinner.


	2. Responding to Fanmail

Harry had greatly enjoyed his first week at Hogwarts. Everything was so new, and exciting, and amazing. He was actually learning to do magic! A more than that, for the first time in his life, he had a friend! Maybe even two if you counted Hagrid. Harry and Ron had been practically inseparable all week. They had all their classes together, they ate all their meals together, they slept across from each other, and this afternoon they were going to visit Hagrid together. It was a strange and happy feeling to finally have someone who enjoyed spending time with him, Harry thought, as he finished the last of his lunch.

Right now, however, was one of the brief moments when Harry and Ron were apart. Ron had finished lunch early and run off, telling Harry he'd see him back in their common room, not even giving Harry a chance to ask where he was going.

Harry was about to head back himself when, to his great surprise, a large owl arrived in the Great Hall and flew down to alight in front of him, a letter clutched in its talons. Harry was surprised: He had never gotten a letter before in his life, except for his acceptance to Hogwarts, and now he got two owls in one day? He was suddenly becoming popular, it seemed! Not only that, but this was an unusual time for an owl to arrive. Most letters were delivered at the start of a meal, usually breakfast. This owl was the only one to arrive so late. Harry wondered if he had gotten lost.

The Weasleys still at the table were also surprised to see the owl. Percy called out "Why that's Errol, our family's owl! What's he doing delivering an owl to you, Harry?" The twins wore expressions Harry couldn't quite place, with hints of both amusement and guilt.

Harry certainly didn't know why Ron's family's owl had brought him a letter, but he knew the best way to find out. He took the letter Errol offered him, opened it up, and read. He read through the letter twice, than sat there staring at it, unsure how to react. Meanwhile, Fred and George were both staring at him, waiting for his reaction, and even Percy was shooting him glances.

Some parts of Ginny's letter made Harry a bit uncomfortable. He still wasn't used to everyone in the wizarding world knowing more about him than he'd known about himself only a few weeks ago. Her questions touched on things he didn't want to talk about. He had't talked about the Dursleys with anyone besides Ron, and all he had told him was that the Dursleys were horrible muggles who'd been cruel to him, without giving any specifics. He wasn't sure how much he wanted to tell Ginny.

He couldn't just ignore her letter, though. Ron's family had been so nice to him. He had just been thinking how great it was to have a friend, and now here was another child his age who seemed interested in being friends! And more than that, she was lonely. Her brothers might not understand what that felt like, but Harry certainly did. He was pretty certain that Ginny's home life wasn't as bad as his had been, but it would be rather callous to ignore someone feeling the same longing for companionship he had often felt in the past, just because he was happily at Hogwarts now.

Having resolved that he would write a reply, Harry decided to put it off until that evening. It was worth putting some thought into the first letter he would ever write. Besides, he wasn't sure if he wanted Ron knowing that he was writing to his sister. Something told him Ron might be funny about that.

He thanked Errol, and put Ginny's letter, carefully folded, into a pocket of his robes. As he stood up to leave, he saw three Weasleys still watching him, wondering what kind of message he had received from their family. As he tried to figure out what he wanted to tell them, Fred asked "It was a letter from Ginny, wasn't it?"

Realizing he wouldn't be able to hide that much, Harry nodded.

"What'd she have to say to you?" George asked.

"Nothing much." Harry said evasively. "She said she missed having all of you around. She was hoping she and I could be friends."

"Well I think this means that you owe me ten sickles," George said to Fred. He smiled at Harry. "We had a bet running on whether Ginny would write you. Do be nice to her, okay? She's our little sister, you know. Getting a letter from you would probably be a big deal for her."

"But I've never written a letter before!" said Harry, dismayed at the thought of accidentally offending the whole Weasley family.

Fred laughed. "You know Harry, you might have to get used to answering fan-mail. Don't worry, its easy. Just be yourself. Say a few nice things and she'll take that letter and treasure it forever. She's admired you for a long time."

"Okay, I'll keep that in mind." Harry replied. He headed back towards the Gryffindor common room, deciding he didn't want to keep Ron waiting for too long.

While they waited until three, Ron taught Harry to play Exploding Snap, a wizard card game, that like most things in the wizard world, seemed a good deal more dangerous than any muggle equivalent. This just made it more exciting, however, and it was a much more enjoyable way to pass the time than starting on the homework they had already been assigned. Shortly before three, they went to Hagrid's, where they learned about the suspicious Gringotts break in, and he and Ron spent much of the afternoon speculating about how anyone could manage to break into Gringotts, and what might have been in the package that Hagrid had rescued.

Meanwhile, in the back of his mind, Harry was still thinking about what he would say to Ginny. Despite Fred's assurances, Harry was nervous about writing his first letter. Particularly since it was to a girl he had never met. That night, he told Ron that he felt like turning in early (for some reason, he didn't quite feel like talking about Ginny with Ron, and the tone in Ginny's letter suggested she might appreciate that). He went to his bed and drew the curtains, then secretly got out writing supplies: a quill, ink, a sheet of parchment, and a sturdy book on which to place the sheet. Then he began to write the words he had been thinking about all day.

 _Dear Ginny,_

 _Thank you for your letter. Before today the only letters I had ever received were my Hogwarts acceptance letters. Your whole family has been so nice to me. You sound like you are a very nice person too. Ron hasn't told me anything about you, but he has told me lots about Quidditch. I hope that I'll be able to play someday. We have our first flying lesson next Thursday, and I'm looking forward to it._

 _I don't remember much of anything about my parents or about You-Know-Who (Why can't anyone say his name?). I do sometimes have dreams where I think I remember my parents faces, and they often end with a scary flash of green light, which I guess must be some kind of spell. After they died, I was raised by my aunt and uncle, who aren't magical folks and didn't like magic much. That's why I didn't know about how to get onto the platform, and its probably why I don't know a lot of other things about your world. I'm sorry if I sound stupid sometimes because of that._

 _Hogwarts has been really fun, even though I still feel like I have a lot of catching up to do. A lot of the kids here have been learning about magic for years. The ones who haven't seem to have prepared a lot more than I have, like Hermione, who's already memorized all our school books. Ron tells me not to worry about it, but I still do. It's so cool to be doing real magic, though!_

 _Now I'm curious about you too, Ginny. What was it like growing up in a wizard family? What is it like having such a_ ** _big_** _family?_

 _Your Friend (?),_

 _Harry Potter_

Harry looked over the letter nervously. He had tried to copy the format Ginny had used. His letter was about the same length, which he hoped was an appropriate one. He had tried to answer her questions without revealing too much. He hoped she wouldn't ask more questions about his childhood, but at the same time, he couldn't resist asking about hers, because he was very curious about what it was like to grow up with a real family, a family that cared about you and didn't make you sleep in a cupboard.

Harry thought about the Dursleys and shuddered. As much as magic excited him, the thing he most enjoyed about Hogwarts was simply that he was away from Dudley and his parents. It seemed like this was a place where he could make friends, even though he wasn't sure how to go about the business of friend making. He hoped that Ginny would become his next one.

With these happier thoughts in mind, Harry folded up his letter, put back his writing supplies, and lay down, resolving to get up early tomorrow, even though it was Saturday, to take his letter to the Owlery.

* * *

Author's Note: Hi everybody, Adthor here! Thanks for reading my story! And special thanks to ragsweas, Dul'mephistos, and Sweta-hyd for reviewing my first chapter ^_^ . This is my first fic here, so I really appreciate all the feedback I can get. Positive feedback makes me happy, and negative feedback makes the story better (hopefully). I think I have pretty thick skin, so feel free to offer constructive criticisms.

I'm going to try to update this story once a week, on Fridays (when it's Friday in California at least). That's probably about the limit of what I can maintain given my other obligations (like a full-time job). The chapters should get a little bit longer though (I know this one was kind of short by my standards). If things go roughly according to my plans, the story will end up fairly long (20+ chapters). Timeframe wise it will be a PS re-write, but expect the canon plot of PS to start getting derailed pretty soon.

I think that's all the big picture stuff I need to be telling you? Let me know if its not!


	3. Learning About Families

Ginny was out in the yard, feeding the chickens, when Harry's reply came. A beautiful snow white owl swooped out of the sky and landed in front of her, offering her a letter with her name on it. Ginny opened it with a squeal, already suspecting what was inside.

Sure enough, it was a letter from Harry, as she had hoped. He had actually written back to her! He didn't think she was a stupid little girl! It seemed like he even wanted to be friends! She read through Harry's letter three times, then breezed through the rest of her chores with a cheerfulness that made Molly Weasley start to get suspicious. Ginny had been having quite the mood swings lately.

When her mum finally freed her to go and play, Ginny rushed up to her room to write a reply to Harry. She still felt a bit of trepidation at writing to her crush, but she told herself that she was already too far in to give up now. The part of her that was afraid was overwhelmed by the part of her that desperately wanted to get another letter from Harry.

Once again not allowing herself too much time to overthink what she was writing, Ginny jotted down the following reply:

 _Dear Harry,_

 _Thank you for your letter! I'm happy that you're having fun at Hogwarts. Don't worry about being behind, or being stupid. I don't think growing up in a wizard family matters as much as you think. Your mum was a muggle-born and she was supposed to have been one of the top students at Hogwarts in her day. We're not supposed to practice magic at home anyway until we come of age. If you used magic at home, the Ministry of Magic would actually be able to trace it and get you in trouble. Of course, if you have a wizard family they can't really catch you, but my mum would never let me learn any spells before I start at Hogwarts next year._

 _It's hard for me to tell you what its like growing up in a wizard family, though, because I only know wizard families. I don't know what it is like to live with muggles at all. It's kind of funny, because my dad works at the Ministry of Magic in the muggle affairs division, and he's always bringing home muggle gadgets and trying to figure out how they work, but he doesn't usually seem to get very far. My mum stays home and takes care of all of us kids. She's taught us all about the history of magical Britain and some of the basics of magical theory. Like I said, though, its not much help for practical spell-casting, which is what everyone really cares about. I'm not sure what she's going to do with herself once I head off to Hogwarts._

 _We have Errol the owl, and gnomes in the garden, and a ghoul in the attic, and chickens to take care of. The house still seems kind of quiet now, though. Having a big family was nice, because there was always someone to play with. Fred and George get in all kinds of trouble, they pull just as many pranks at home as at Hogwarts, and they would let me tag along. I'm not a bad prankster myself._

 _At the same time, having so many brothers can be frustrating sometimes. Everyone is always treating me like a baby and not realizing that I can take care of myself, just because I'm the youngest. Mum always makes me help with the housework and the cooking, just because I'm the only girl, which isn't fair at all, because I'd much rather be playing outside with my brothers. I know they all love me a lot, though, even if the way they show it can be really annoying._

 _Were you the only child growing up? What was that like? Also, what is your owl's name? She was very pretty._

 _Keep me posted on what's happening at Hogwarts. I'm trusting you to tell me which of the things the twins tell me are actually true._

 _Your Friend,_

 _Ginny_

She wasn't sure if it was polite to talk about his family or bring up his dead mum, but he had asked about her family, so she thought it was probably fair to talk about his. She sent the letter with Errol that night.

Harry's owl arrived with a reply on Monday morning. Ginny was very happy with how quickly Harry was answering her letters. Was it possible that he actually enjoyed writing to her as well?

 _Dear Ginny,_

 _This owl is Hedwig. Hagrid got her for me as a birthday present! (Do you know Hagrid? He's the groundskeeper here at Hogwarts. He's wonderful) I told her to wait around for your reply this time, because I don't sent letter to anyone else, and Errol looked pretty tired. Take care of her._

 _Not too much has happened at Hogwarts over the weekend. The homework from the first week of classes took me longer than I expected. I'm still not very used to writing with a quill, and our teachers are already assigning us essays. Most of the professors are very nice, though. Except for Snape. I think he hates me. He kept calling on me in class on Friday to humiliate me when I didn't know the answers, and he took points from Gryffindor twice, even though it really wasn't my fault._

 _All the Slytherins seem so nasty. I'm not sure why Hogwarts has a house for people like that. I'm mostly glad I don't have to live with them, though. The Gryffindors have all been very nice to me, even though its kind of weird to have everyone treat me like a celebrity. I don't understand why something I did as a baby makes me so special._

 _I didn't know my mum was a muggle-born, or that she was a top student. That makes me feel a little better. Do you know anything else about my parents? My aunt and uncle never told me anything about them. Before I came to Hogwarts I thought they died in a car accident._

 _I didn't really grow up as an only child, but I wish that I did. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia always liked my cousin Dudley a lot better than me. He could be pretty mean to me sometimes. I don't really like to talk about it._

 _Your house sounds like a very magical place. I don't know anything about ghouls or gnomes (I do know about chickens at least). It must have been fun to grow up there._

She fed Hedwig one of Errol's owl treats, which she seemed to enjoy, and stroked the beautiful white owl gently. It was good that Harry was letting her use his owl, because she wasn't sure how much longer she would have been able to use Errol without her mum getting suspicious.

After she'd read Harry's letter enough time that she was sure she must have it memorized, she carefully tucked it into a drawer of her writing desk on top of his first one. She wondered if Harry was keeping her letters too, and blushed slightly at the thought that the famous Harry Potter might be holding onto something that she had made. All of a sudden she was very nervous about writing to Harry again.

Fortunately, however, Ginny was not one to give up something she had started. Also, the fact that Hedwig was still in her room waiting for her reply incentivised her to write. She decided she should date this letter, just in case Harry was keeping the old letters, and wanted them to be organized.

 _9 September, 1991_

 _Dear Harry,_

 _Hedwig is beautiful, you're lucky to have such a good owl. It was very nice of Hagrid to think of her for you, a snowy owl like that couldn't have been cheap. Fred and George have told me that Hagrid's a pretty easy to get along with guy—he doesn't give them too much trouble if he finds them somewhere they're probably not supposed to be. He's been at Hogwarts at least since my parents were there. I've heard that he's really huge. Is that true?_

 _I'm sorry to hear that Snape's been giving you trouble already. From what I've heard he's terrible to all the Gryffindors. Even Percy doesn't like him. It sucks if he's picking on you specifically. Its not worth getting worked up about though. If he knows that he's bothering you he'll just get even worse, and its not worth losing any more points than you have to, is it? The same thing probably goes for the Slytherins. Don't let them goad you into fights that will get you into trouble. If you really need to vent your frustrations at them, take a page from the Twins' book and be sneaky about it. Don't give them anything they can pin on you._

 _I don't know very much about your parents. I know that they met at Hogwarts, were Head Boy and Head Girl together in their seventh year, and got married soon after they graduated. They were both supposed to have been very talented wizards, and they were very active in fighting against You-Know-Who. Soon after you were born, You-Know-Who seemed to start seeking them out specifically for some reason. They managed to hide for a while, but nobody can hide from him forever, so eventually he hit both of them with the killing curse, and he tried to hit you too, except for some reason it bounced off and hit him instead, and that's why your famous._

 _My mum says that James and Lily Potter were very good people, and its a tragedy that they had to die so young. I'm sorry I can't tell you more about them, though. It's terrible that you can't remember them at all. Didn't your aunt and uncle know what happened? I think that they should have had a right to, even if they're muggles._

 _My dad always says that we wizards never give muggles the respect they deserve, and that muggles are as smart and nice as we are. I've never actually talked with a muggle, though, so I can't be sure if he's right. What do you think?_

 _Your friend,_

 _Ginny_

After the hints that Harry had dropped, Ginny was even more eager to know more about Harry's muggle family, but she knew that it would be rude to press him when he'd said he wasn't comfortable sharing.

She handed her letter to Hedwig, and went down to help her mum with lunch, hoping that she wouldn't ask why Ginny seemed so especially cheerful today.

* * *

Author's Note: Thanks again for all the reviews and follows and favorites! It's really exciting to see how many people are interested in this story. Hopefully it will continue to live up to your expectations!

For my random tidbit of the week, I wanted to give credit to my inspirations for writing this story. I only got into the HP fandom in the past year (actually I read the HP books for the first time over the winter holidays. I know, I was living under a rock!), and I was first exposed to the idea of Harry and Ginny being pen-pals during his first year in one of the one-shots from Epeefencer's "Harry Loves Ginny and Ginny Loves Harry". I thought it was a really cute idea, and so I went and found a Sink Into Your Eyes challenge about the same concept (When Ginny Met Harry 2007-1) and read a bunch more cute fics, and then was annoyed that they were all so short, and tended to skip over most of first year and most of Ginny and Harry's letters, to get to the point of them being good friends (or boyfriend and girlfriend, which I find a little weird for eleven-year-olds).

I was interested in seeing a lot more details about how Ginny and Harry got to know each other, and in speculating about how becoming friends with Ginny could potentially affect other events in Harry's first year, so I decided to write my own fic. Once I started writing, I had all kinds of other ideas, and the thing kind of spiraled away from the initial very fluffy idea into something a lot more complicated and serious. I'm still not sure exactly where the balance between cute fluffiness and a more suspenseful plot will lie. I'll try to provide a bit of both.


	4. Troubles with Malfoy

On Tuesday morning Hedwig flew into the Great Hall with Ginny's latest letter. This time, Ron was there to see it. As Hewdig flew up to Harry, Ron asked curiously "Who's written you this time, mate?"

Harry subtlety angled the letter away from his friend's sight, for some reason still not wanting Ron to know that he was writing to her. "It's just my aunt" he said as causally as he could. "She's telling me to make sure to be good at school, because she's not going to take me back if I get kicked out." Though Ron wouldn't, Harry knew that the least believable part of the lie was that Aunt Petunia would care enough to write to him.

That might have been the end of it, if not for the fact that Malfoy had also been listening. While Harry was distracted by Ron, Malfoy snatched the letter out of his hand.

"You seem to get an awful lot of mail, Potter, for someone whose family is dead!"

"Shut up Malfoy!" Harry jumped for the letter, but Malfoy kept it out of his reach, as Crabbe and Goyle moved to intercept Harry.

"Let's see who this letter's really from, shall we?"

To Harry's dismay, Malfoy ripped open the envelope and began to read the letter within.

"You never learn do you Potter? I warned you not to hang out with those blood traitors, but you've already gone and gotten yourself a Weaselette as a girlfriend. Try not to let her drain your money too fast."

Harry had heard more than enough. "Give that back!" he yelled, throwing himself at Malfoy, and reaching for the letter.

Just as Crabbe and Goyle were moving in to pull Harry off of Malfoy, the commanding voice of Professor McGonagall interrupted them. "Break it up boys! Now what's this about?"

"He attacked me!" Draco shouted, attempting to look as if he was in great pain.

"He stole my mail!" Harry replied indignantly. "Look, he's still holding it!"

Malfoy flushed as Harry pointed to the letter he held. Apparently he didn't see any easy way to deny this fact.

"Please hand over that letter, Malfoy."

With a frown, Draco handed the letter to McGonagall, who quickly checked that it was indeed addressed to Harry, before handing it back to him.

"Potter, when you have a problem with another student, the correct response is to inform me or another of your professors, not to resort to physical violence. One point from Gryffindor for your short-temper."

"And Malfoy, stealing from another student is completely intolerable. Five points from Slytherin and you will have detention tonight with me."

Malfoy seemed about to argue, but at Professor McGonagall's stern glare he thought better of it. Instead, he simply sneered at Harry and slunk back to the Slytherin table.

As he sat back down himself, Harry desperately hoped that Ron wouldn't say anything. Of course he wasn't that lucky.

"What was that Malfoy was saying about my sister?" Ron asked. "I though you said the letter was from your aunt?"

"I just didn't want you to tease me." Harry stammered. "I mean, getting a letter from a girl, it's kind of embarrassing, you know?"

"Wait, so it actually was Ginny writing you?"

"Yeah, it was from Ginny. Apparently she wanted to know if I was really like the stories said. I'm going to tell her they're complete nonsense of course." For some reason, Harry still felt it was best to conceal the fact that he and Ginny had written before.

"Oy, you can't do that! Ginny's been completely batty about you ever since she was five. If she gets a letter from you she'll never shut up about it! You're better off just ignoring her. I'll write home at some point and tell her off for bothering you."

His suspicions about Ron's feelings toward his sister confirmed, Harry directed the conversation toward other topics, resolving to get about ignoring Ron's advice later that evening.

He didn't have time to write that evening, though, nor the next one. By Thursday night, he had so much to write about that he decided that he had to write his next letter to Ginny immediately, before too many noteworthy things happened for him to have any hope of fitting them in a single letter. He hoped that having a lot to talk about could also give him an excuse to avoid some of Ginny's more prying questions. He wasn't about to write her about the Dursleys.

 _Dear Ginny,_

 _A lot has happened at Hogwarts since I wrote my last letter. I guess I should start by saying that you should tell Hedwig to try to give me your next letter when I'm alone instead of at breakfast. Malfoy managed to steal your last letter and read a little bit of it, and he teased me about having a Weasley for a girlfriend and then Ron heard and seemed a bit miffed that you'd written me. Hopefully he doesn't bother you about it, but it might just be easier if you try to make sure he doesn't see more of your letters._

 _Malfoy hasn't gotten any better since then. One of the other Gryffindor first years, Neville Longbottom, got a Remembrall (you must know what those are, you're magic) this morning, and Malfoy tried to steal it, but Professor McGonagall (you've probably heard of her, she's the head of Gryffindor house) made him give it back, but then we were having our first flying lesson and Neville had an accident and lost control of his broom and got hurt and lost the Remembrall. And then Malfoy took it again! I tried to get it back from him, but he threw it, and then I wasn't thinking, and I was really angry, so I guess I just chased after it on my broom, even though we weren't supposed to be flying yet. And then I caught the Remembrall, and McGonagall saw it, and I was sure she was going to punish me, because she's really strict, but instead she told me that I'm on the Quidditch team!_

 _I can't believe it! I was worried that it would be another thing where I would be behind all the kids who grew up in wizard families, and I guess that's not true, so I'm happy. I hope that I don't embarrass Oliver Wood (he's the captain) and Gryffindor house, though. I'm sure my flying isn't as amazing as professor McGonagall says it is. She said that my catch was as good as Charlie Weasley's. Is he another of your brothers? I haven't met him. (I guess I could ask Ron that, but I forgot about it until now, and I'm writing to you, so I might as well just ask Ginny instead)._

 _Then at lunch time, Malfoy was mad at me, so he challenged me to a duel, and Ron immediately said yes and volunteered himself as my second, and I was sure I was going to have to fight him and I would lose because he'd already learned a bunch of curses and hexes I hadn't. But then after lunch, I calmed down and I remembered what you said in your last letter, about not letting the Slytherins goad me into fights that would get me in trouble, and I decided you were probably right and that instead of going and getting myself in trouble, I should just tell a prefect._

 _Ron was pretty upset about it at first, telling me that I was being a coward and that I wasn't a real Gryffindor, but then I talked to Percy, and Percy talked to Filch, and Filch said that one of the Slytherin first years had already told him there was going to be a duel in the trophy room tonight. It seems like Malfoy was never even going to show up in the first place! I guess I should make sure to keep listening to you. You probably saved me from a rough time there. Thanks!_

 _I'm sorry I didn't get around to answering any of your questions. I thought you would be more interested in hearing about what is happening a Hogwarts. Maybe in the next letter I'll have less news._

 _Your Friend,_

 _Harry_

By the time Harry finished his letter it was rather late and his hand was sore. Writing with a quill still felt weird. Ron had already gone to bed, but Harry had claimed to be staying up to finish his potions essay due tomorrow. Unfortunately this wan't totally a lie. He hadn't finished the essay. At this point, however, it was too late and he was too tired to do more writing. With a sigh, Harry decided there was nothing for it but turning in a half finished essay. Snape would probably be furious, but he already hated Harry, so there wasn't much to lose. He just hoped he wouldn't get called out for it in front of Ron.

He didn't really regret spending so long on his letter. Keep Ginny informed was important. He'd always had school, but this was the first time he had real friends. Ron and Ginny were his first two, and he intended to do everything he could to hold on to both of them.

* * *

Author's Note: Another short chapter, I promise the next few will be longer. As you can see, however, Harry and Ron have already missed their appointment with Fluffy. The main plot is starting to drift from canon. And of course, Harry continues to be cute :-)


	5. Conflict with Mum

Harry's latest letter arrived on Saturday morning, while Ginny was having a late breakfast with her parents.

"Hello Hedwig!" Ginny exclaimed happily as Harry's owl alighted in front of her and held out a rolled up piece of parchment. Ginny took the letter and fed the owl.

She was about to devour Harry's latest missive when she noticed that her parents were both giving her curious looks. Mrs. Weasley decided to be the one to ask the obvious question.

"I don't believe I'm as acquainted with this owl as you are, Ginny. Who have you been writing letters with?"

Ginny blushed, but knew it was too late to hide this from her mother.

"Harry Potter" she said softly.

"Ginny!" exclaimed Mrs. Weasley. "Seeing him at the station wan't enough, you had to go and bother him at Hogwarts too! That poor boy must have quite enough fangirls already without you pestering him too. Really Ginny, your infatuation with Harry Potter has gone far enough. It was cute when you were five, but you're getting to old to be obsessed with fairy-stories."

"I'm not whatever-you-said with fairy-stories!" Ginny exclaimed indignantly. "Harry's not just a story. Look, he wrote me a letter, it's real! And even if he doesn't know it yet, someday we're really going to get married!"

She blushed. She had definitely said more than she'd meant to. She was going to get a scolding now.

"See Ginny, this is exactly what I was talking about. You're far too young to be thinking about 'really getting married' and so is Harry. Honestly! You've never even met the boy, how can you even be sure he's someone you'd want to marry? He can't possibly have done _everything_ your books say he did. I'm quite sure that he doesn't need another admirer bothering him while he's studying at school."

"Harry doesn't mind. He wrote back! Even Ron hasn't done that!" Ginny had written her brother two days after he left, and a week and a half later, he had yet to respond.

"That just shows he's excessively polite. Perhaps he'll be a good influence on your brother. I'm quite certain he doesn't need the fawning curiosity of a ten-year-old."

Ginny opened her mouth to argue more, but her mother wasn't in the mood.

"Enough of this, Ginny. You will write Harry back and tell him that it was awfully kind of him to write back to you and you aren't going to bother him again, alright?"

"Yes mother. I'll do it right after breakfast." Ginny replied. She had, of course, no intention of doing anything of the kind, but there came a point when her mother was stuck on a certain idea, and it was just best not to argue with her.

"You'll see Harry at school next year." her dad said encouragingly. Mr. Weasley also knew better than to argue with his wife, but Ginny suspected that he wasn't nearly as against her writing to Harry.

When breakfast was finished, Ginny went up to her room, took out the letter from Harry, and read it thoroughly, several times. Of course she was excited that he had made the Quidditch team. As a first year no less! If only she could actually see him fly, she thought wistfully. Or better yet, fly with him. She was amazed that he was thanking her for giving him good advice. She had actually been able to help Harry Potter?

The letter did much to quell the unspoken fear she had been holding in that perhaps her mother was right and she was just an annoying fangirl to Harry. Surely he didn't see her that way. They were friends now. She had helped him. He was asking her things instead of Ron. So what if she had a crush on him? So what if she hoped that their friendship would turn into something more? Maybe she was a little young for those kinds of feelings, but she was a mature young witch. And if Harry wasn't ready yet, she would just have to wait. She could do that. She could wait a year or two. Ginny was a patient girl.

Satisfied with the state of her relationship with Harry, Ginny got out two sheets of paper. On the first, she wrote a brief note that would earn her mother's approval, thanking Harry so much for writing to her and apologizing profusely for bothering him, and wishing him a good year and saying she'd leave him alone.

On the second piece of paper, she began writing her real letter to Harry.

 _14 September, 1991_

 _Dear Harry,_

 _I'll make sure to tell Hedwig to be sneaky in carrying this letter. In return, can you please do the same with your letters to me? My mum found out that we'd been writing, and she told me off for it, saying something about how you must have lots of friends already and you don't need a "fangirl" like me. If that is true, please tell me, and I'll leave you alone. If it's not true, though, just tell Hedwig to deliver a letter when my mum isn't going to see._

 _I'm so glad you made the Quiddich team. If McGonagall personally recommended you as a first year, I'm sure that you'll be a brilliant player. Charlie is my second oldest brother. He played seeker for Gryffindor back when he was in school. Now he works with dragons in Romania. He was Quidditch captain, and he even taught me a few tricks. I hope I get to introduce you to him sometime. Are you going to play Seeker too? I guess so, if you were able to catch a marble in the air._

 _I wish I could see one of your games. I'd cheer for you really loud. I hope that I'll be able to make the Quidditch team when I get to Hogwarts. And who knows, if you could make it as a first year, maybe I could too! I guess I'm not as talented as you are, but I've practiced a lot, and I'll practice a lot more this year. I used to want to be a seeker like Charlie, but I guess you've got that position pretty locked down for the next six years. Chaser sounds like it would be pretty fun too. I should find some way to practice with a Quaffle. I think that your Dad was a chaser, actually._

 _I'm sorry if none of this makes sense. Have you learned the basics of Quiddich yet?_

 _I'm also really glad that you were able to avoid trouble with Malfoy. I guess Percy is good for something after all, huh? If you keep listening to me instead of Ron, I think you'll find yourself in a lot less detentions (not that Ron's bad. I like him a lot, it's just that he can be a bit reckless). Just remember that being brave isn't the same as being stupid. You are a Gryffindor, no matter what anyone says, so you don't have to prove it._

 _I guess this letter is already pretty long, so I'll just stop here. You still have questions from my last letter to answer._

 _Your Friend,_

 _Ginny_

Her letters finished, she turned to the patient bird who had followed her up here.

"I hope you'll be able to understand this, Hedwig, because this delivery's going to be a little complicated. I'm going to give you this letter," here she held up the first short letter, "downstairs after showing it to my mum. I want you to fly off with it, and wait until you see me out in the yard. Then come back to me and I'll swap this letter," here she held up the second letter she had just finished, "for that one. I want you to give this letter to Harry. But wait until you can do it when he's alone so that he doesn't get teased about it. Have you got all that?"

Hedwig bobbed her head in what seemed to be a gesture of affirmation, so Ginny went ahead with her plan. She showed the tame letter to her mother, and made sure that she could see Ginny sending the letter off with Hedwig. Hopefully that would throw off suspicion.

Her mother was happy that she was "such a good girl" and "being so grown-up about this," and so she told Ginny, "of course you can go play in the yard," which is exactly what Ginny wanted to hear. Once she was sure that she was out of her mother's sight, she waved to the owl hovering high above her, and performed an exchange of letters. Hedwig even helpfully removed the evidence by shredding the first letter with her sharp talons, before flying off to Hogwarts. All in all, Ginny felt quite pleased with herself.

Ginny's weekend passed quickly and uneventfully. On Monday night, she was sitting in her room, doodling pictures of herself and Harry together when she heard a rapping on her window. As she hoped, it was Hedwig, bearing a letter from Harry.

 _15 September, 1991_

 _Dear Ginny,_

 _Please don't doubt whether you're a real friend of mine. Your mum is wrong, I don't have a lot of friends. In fact, you're the second real friend I've ever had, after Ron. It seems like everyone at school just wants to admire me from a distance or ask me about Voldemort (as if I know anything about Voldemort!) and then when they find out that I don't know much of anything about the wizarding world, or that I'm not all confident and heroic, they lose interest._

 _Everybody's a fan of the storybook me, probably even you and Ron. I guess I don't really care too much one way or the other about that. I just wish that there were more people who cared about the real me, even if I can't be anything like the hero they expect based on the stories. I hope you can be one of those people for me, Ginny. Somehow, it's a little bit easier for me to say things to you, when I'm writing letters, and I have time to try to make sure I don't screw up and say the wrong thing. I'm pretty good at doing that._

 _I'm sorry. That still came out more mushy than I meant. I'm glad that you think I'll be good at Quidditch. It makes me feel a little better to know that my Dad played. Maybe Quidditch is in my blood. I still don't really understand anything about how Quidditch works, though. Ron talks about Quidditch a lot, but he he's never bothered to explain the rules, and at this point I'm kind of embarrassed to ask him, because he seems to think I know something about Quidditch._

 _Anyway, I said last time I'd address you questions. Hagrid is definitely huge. I think that he's bigger than my aunt, uncle, and cousin all put together, and that's saying something, because Uncle Vernon and Cousin Dudley were both very round. I don't know if the Dursleys knew what happened to my parents. I guess they had to know, but they never told me._

 _You also asked whether muggles are as smart and nice as wizards. That's a really good question. I'm not actually sure. On the one hand, Malfoy is a jerk, even though he's a wizard, and I don't want to think he could be right about any of this blood stuff. On the other hand, none of the muggles I've known have been very nice too me. I'd like to think that it's just my relatives that are really awful, but I can't really be sure. After all, no one wanted to be my friend in six years of primary school, and I've already made two friends in the wizarding world. I guess I can't say for sure one way or the other. What do you think, Ginny?_

 _Your Friend,_

 _Harry_

The contents of the letter were not the most pleasant, but Ginny still smiled happily to read it. It was a letter from Harry after all. She would be happy to tell him all about Quidditch. She was almost as big a fan as Ron, after all, and she was confident that she could explain the game in a way which would be much clearer to the uninitiated. She was also very happy to hear that her mother's worries were indeed silly, and Harry counted her as a real friend.

The rest of the letter, however, was unsettling. To think that she and her brother were the only two friends Harry had ever had! She had thought that her life was lonely, but she found it very hard to feel bad for herself anymore. It seemed like anything that had been bad for her had been worse for Harry.

The more Harry let slip about his relatives, the more Ginny hated them. She shuddered to imagine what kinds of things Harry didn't want to tell her. His words about muggles in general were not reassuring. She had expected Harry to tell her that of course there was no difference between muggles and wizards, it just happened that they could use magic and the muggles couldn't. That was what her parents had told her all along. Ginny had always vaguely questioned the idea. After all, if they were basically the same as muggles, why was it such a big deal to hide from them? On the whole, however, she had been happy to trust her parent's judgment in the matter.

Now, however, she felt rather less certain. Harry, who had spent eleven years among muggles, couldn't point to a single one who he considered a friend or definitely a good person. While she knew that her circle of acquaintances, even among wizard-folk, was rather small, Ginny felt that the vast majority of people she knew were friendly and kind, and would have been eager to help a poor lonely boy like Harry. She kept finding herself staring at Harry's final question. What did she think about muggles?

Thoughtfully, she began to write out the easy part of her letter to Harry, thoroughly explaining the rules of Quidditch, all the different positions and how they interacted, and the things that she knew about the Gryffindor team from Fred and George and Charlie. She knew that the letter wasn't finished though, and she still wasn't sure how to answer Harry's question. How could she really know what muggles were like? She was even less informed than Harry. She'd never even talked to a muggle!

The more she thought about it, the more curious that seemed to her. Hiding magic from muggles made some sense, she supposed. Who knew how they would react to finding out? But wizards hiding themselves seemed a different matter. She and her brothers were allowed to go and play with other wizarding children, like Luna Lovegood, or Lee Jordan, but she'd never gotten to meet any of the muggle children of Ottery St Catchpole. She decided that this was worth talking to her mother about.

Ginny found her mother sitting on a chair in the living room, knitting a jumper. Magical knitting needles made the process a lot faster than it would be using muggle means, but making jumpers for the whole family still wasn't quick, so Mrs. Weasley preferred to start early on her traditional Christmas presents.

"Hey Mum, can I ask you a question?" Ginny initiated.

"Hm?" Mrs. Weasley looked up distractedly.

"How come we never visit the muggle village?" Ginny asked.

"What would you want to do there?" Mrs. Weasley asked, looking slightly puzzled. "Anything you could find in the village we can surely do here with magic. Have you inherited your father's silly fascination with the muggle ways of doing things?"

"It's not really that. It's just, there's a village right over the hill, full of people, and we've never met any of them!"

"Well of course we haven't! That's just the statue of secrecy. You know that, Ginny."

"No it isn't! You taught me about the statue of secrecy, it says that we can't let muggles know about magic. It doesn't say anywhere that we can't even talk to them!"

"But Ginny, if we start talking to muggles, they're going to start asking questions. They'll want to know where we live, where your dad works, what we spend all day doing. We'd quickly get caught up in a big web of lies. And that's not even mentioning your accidental magic."

"What about my accidental magic?"

"What if muggles saw it? We'd be in all kinds of trouble with the ministry. And since you can't control it, the only way to be sure no one sees you do magic is if muggles don't see you at all. Back before the statute of secrecy, it was mainly wizarding children who were killed by muggles."

Ginny wasn't quite sure how to respond.

"Muggles are usually perfectly good people, Ginny, just like wizards. But it's easier and safer for both of us if we don't mix with them more than we have to."

"Just because its more easy and safe doesn't mean its better." Ginny countered. She wasn't quite sure why she was still arguing. Her mum had made some good points that Ginny hadn't thought of, but for some reason, Ginny wasn't quite ready to throw out the idea of visiting the muggle village.

"When you're older, Ginny, you can do as you please, even if that means spending your days with muggles. While you're living here in this house, though, you'll follow my rules, and that means no going down to the village. I think that after you've been through Hogwarts you'll see that the magical world has more than enough to keep you happy."

"If you say so, Mum." Ginny found that she was even more confused now than before she had talked to her mum. She went upstairs and sat down, deciding that perhaps her thoughts would become a bit clearer if she wrote them out.

She felt like her thoughts were such a mess that she wondered if she should try to plan out what she wanted to say to Harry on another sheet of paper before she actually began writing, but she knew that she'd rather not have to write the same things twice, and decided that based on the little she'd seen of Harry, he probably wouldn't mind if she rambled a bit. If he did, he could always tell her so, and she would have learned something about him.

And so she began to express her thoughts about muggles, beginning right below her description of quidditch scoring.

 _You asked me what I think about muggles. That's a really good question. I realized that I hadn't thought about it very much before. I've kind of always assumed that they weren't too different from wizards, since that what I've always been told. I guess neither of us really knows enough to answer the question, though, because we don't know many people, wizard or muggles._

 _But then I started thinking about it, and I wondered why it is that I've never met any muggles. If they really aren't any different, why do we avoid them so much? I asked my mum, and she told me I was definitely not allowed to go down to the village to meet muggles, because they might see my accidental magic, and that would be breaking the statute of secrecy. I guess that makes sense. But I kind of feel like there might also be something she's not telling me. I'm not sure anymore if Mum even believes all the things she tells me about muggles._

 _I'm tempted to just sneak out to the village myself, and at least watch the muggles. I know Mum has reasons for telling me to stay away, but she can also be pretty overprotective. I feel like sometimes she forgets that I'm not five anymore, and I can take care of myself._

 _If muggles really aren't dangerous, then why did they try to kill all the wizards a long time ago? Why do we need the statute of secrecy? Maybe you'll learn about that in your history of magic class._

 _I'm sorry. I guess none of this was an answer. I'm really not sure what I think. I'm not used to having to decide what I believe about stuff in the world and it not being the same as what my parents think. It will be exciting to go to Hogwarts next year and have so many new people to talk to. Do you like the professors other than Snape?_

 _PS: Sorry if this letter is too long. Don't worry about replying as fast as you can._

 _Your Friend,_

 _Ginny Weasley_

She wasn't completely happy with the letter, but she'd learned by now that Harry would probably appreciate whatever she sent him, and it would be better to ship the letter off so she could stop worrying about it. Giving the paper over the Hedwig, she watched the pretty white owl disappear into the night, and then settled contentedly into her bed.

* * *

Author's Note: I'm expecting this to become the typical length for chapters going forwards. Yay for more story!

I know that the Weasleys clashing objecting to Harry and Ginny's relationship is a cliched plot in any story where they get together a lot earlier than in canon, but I think it's unavoidable if you want to be true to the characters. As a parent, Molly definitely should be concerned if her ten-year-old daughter is writing long letters to a boy that neither of them knows (And Ginny's natural response of lying to her about it, is definitely not the right one). Rest assured, that I will do my best to avoid "bashing" any character, so expect a rational but rightfully protective Molly.

I also find it a bit strange that in canon, Harry seems not to know the rules of Quidditch by the time of his first practice, despite having been friends with Ron for three weeks (I think its even mentioned that Ron starts talking about Quidditch on the Hogwarts Express), but since I'm trying to follow canon for anything that wouldn't be affected by the ripples from Ginny writing to Harry, Ron sucks at explaining sports and Ginny gets to be the one to teach Harry the game.

Tune in next week to see said first Quidditch practice!

As always, thanks for the follows, favorites, and reviews! Keep them coming! I love getting feedback, and knowing what people like or dislike or want to see help me plan out future chapters.


	6. Introduction to Quidditch

Ever since the fiasco with Malfoy taking Ginny's letter in the Great Hall, Harry had made a habit of visiting the Owlery alone in the morning before breakfast, so that Hedwig would have an opportunity to bring him a letter from Ginny privately. This habit was actually surprisingly easy to establish. Ron was accustomed to waking up as late as possible while still being able to make it to breakfast on time, while Harry was used to waking up early enough to make breakfast for the Dursleys, so he was naturally up and about long before his friend.

Even when there was no letter from Ginny, he enjoyed visiting the owls. They came in all sizes and colors, and were all quite friendly and willing to be stroked. On Tuesday morning, he arrived earlier than usual, and encountered Hagrid feeding the owls. The groundskeeper seemed a little surprised to see Harry, but didn't ask any awkward questions, and told Harry the names of several of the birds.

On Thursday morning, Harry received the letter he had been waiting for, and read it eagerly. When he received his broom at breakfast, he was very glad that Ginny had told him the rules of Quidditch. Perhaps he could avoid completely embarrassing himself in front of Wood that evening.

Harry spent the whole day thinking about flying and Quidditch. He couldn't wait to try out his new broom. He headed over to the Quidditch pitch right after dinner, well before his 7:00 appointment with Oliver, and enjoyed trying out the new broom.

Harry had thought that flying on a school broom was amazing and exhilarating, but flying on the Nimbus 2000 was ten times better. Harry marveled at the speed and control the broom gave him. He could almost imagine that the broom was an extension of his body, and he was as free as a bird. He zoomed back and forth across the pitch, and tried swooping through each of the golden hoops he knew were for the Quaffle.

Eventually he was interrupted by a voice from the ground. "Hey, Potter, come down!"

Harry landed, a little clumsily, next to Wood, and got off of his broom.

"Very nice," Wood complimented Harry. "I see what McGonagall meant … you really are a natural. I'm just going to teach you the rules this evening, then you'll be joining the team practice three times a week."

As Oliver was opening the crate of Quidditch balls, Harry spoke up.

"Actually, sir, I already know the rules." Wood seemed about to question him, so he added, "One of my pure-blood friends explained the game to me, once I found I was going to be on the team."

"I suppose it was the Weasley?"

"Yes, sir." Harry was amused that he could tell the truth and yet leave Wood with no idea that Ginny was his source of Quidditch knowledge.

"The Weasleys are decent sorts. We didn't get flattened by Slytherin back when Charlie was the seeker. And Fred and George are solid beaters, they'll keep you safe from Bludgers."

As he said this, he produced from his box two jet-black balls that Harry recognized as said Bludgers.

"If you're already familiar with the rules, that's less work for me. We can get right to testing your seeking skills. We won't practice with the real Snitch yet. It's too dark and we might lose it. Let's try you out with a few of these instead."

Wood produced a bag of golf balls and hopped on his broom. Harry followed him into the air, and they engaged in what Harry supposed was an aerial game of catch, except that rather than trying to throw the balls too him, Wood was throwing them as far away as he could, and giving Harry no time to rest between catches. Despite this, Harry got every ball.

After ten minutes of this, Wood let up. "Incredible!" he exclaimed. "I think that with practice, you're going to end up even better than Charlie Weasley. And he could have played for England if he hadn't gone off chasing after dragons."

"I feel like we haven't even really found your limits yet. Tell you what, we still have a few minutes before it gets too dark to play, how's about we try you with a Bludger? Of course the beaters will do their best to protect you, but they can't always be around, and a real game, it doesn't matter how fast you could have reached the Snitch if you get knocked off your broom on the way there."

Harry was willing to try. He wanted to continue flying for as long as possible, and he was as curious as Wood about what the limits of his miraculous natural talent might be. As Wood let go of the little black ball, Harry marveled at how it followed him through the air, even without any visible means of propulsion, or means of seeing him, or means of knowing that it should be chasing him.

The single ball was easy enough to dodge. It didn't fly at him very often, he would serve out of the way, it would fly past and then continue for tens of meters before turning around and coming back. But when Wood started throwing golf balls again, and Harry had to dodge and seek at the same time, things became considerably harder. He still caught all the balls, but there were a lot more near misses, both times when he had to stretch as far as he could to catch a golf ball, and times when he felt the rush of air as the Bludger whooshed by him. The heavy ball hit him twice, but it wasn't going very fast and didn't come close to knocking him off his broom. Harry could handle a few bruises. Dudley had done much worse to him.

As the minutes ticked on, the Bludger became harder and harder to see against the darkening sky.

"Five more throws, then we'll call it a night!" Wood called out. Without giving Harry any chance to respond, he threw the next ball, and Harry shot after it, twisting as he flew to avoid the Bludger. He caught the next one easily, but Wood threw the third ball in the opposite direction immediately after, and Harry was forced to make a hundred and eighty degree turn as fast as he could. The Nimbus was capable of making the turn quite fast, but as Harry streaked towards the ball, he was sure that the ball was going to hit the ground. He willed the broom to go just a bit faster as he dove after it, and to his surprise he snatched the golf ball out of the air three feet above the earth. Wood, of course, gave him no time to revel in his triumph, and he immediately rocketed back up to catch the next ball. As he grasped it, the Bludger, which he almost forgotten about, shot past his head ruffling his hair. Harry yelped, for the first time feeling slightly afraid (for some reason being balanced on a thin stick ten meters in the air didn't bother him at all).

"The Bludgers haven't actually killed anyone, have they?" he called nervously to Wood, while trying to determine in what direction the boy was going to throw the next ball. But Wood didn't throw. Instead, he just stared at Harry.

"Look out!" the older boy called.

Harry tried to turn to see what Wood was looking at, but this was the wrong move. The Bludger suddenly appeared from the darkness and slammed into him, going surprisingly fast. Harry felt his grip on his broom slip, and then he was falling. He wondered idly how far you could fall before it killed you. Then all his thoughts were consumed by pain for a brief moment before he knew no more.

 _20 September, 1991_

 _Hey Ginny,_

 _I guess I'll start with the good news. I suddenly have a lot of time to write you this letter!_

 _The bad news is that I have time because I'm in the hospital wing. I had a bit of an accident at my very first Quidditch practice. Thanks, by the way, for explaining the rules to me, that was really helpful. Oliver Wood (he's the Gryffindor captain) seemed to like me. He said that someday I might be even better than Charlie! He was throwing golf balls for me to chase, and I was catching them all. McGonagall got me this awesome broom, it's called a Nimbus 2000, and it's super fast! So then he decided to add a Bludger, and I had to get out of the way and catch the balls, and I was doing good, but then the one time the Bludger turned around really fast, and I didn't see it cause it was dark, and it hit me and I fell off the broom and got hurt. I guess there are some things I need to practice._

 _Playing as Seeker seems pretty dangerous, but flying is still amazing, so I'm not going to let this make me give up. Besides, Madame Pomfrey (she's the healer here) says I should be as good as new in time for classes on Monday. Have you ever gotten hurt playing Quidditch? Or am I just really unlucky?_

 _I hope that your mum wasn't too upset with you for asking about muggles. I certainly don't want you to get get in trouble because of me. I was just curious. If you don't think it would bother him, maybe you could just ask your dad how he knows that muggles are basically just like us. If he works with muggles, he probably knows a lot more about them than either of us, or even your mum._

 _Actually, what do you and your mum do all day? Do you go to a different school? I had to go to school when I was ten. And my aunt would sit at home and watch the telly all day, but I guess that your mum doesn't do that. I feel like I still don't know much of anything about wizarding life._

 _Ron's a nice guy, but he never seems to be very interested in telling me the kind of stuff I was supposed to learn from my parents. Sometimes I wish he was interested in talking about something besides Quidditch or how terrible Slytherin is. It seems like whenever I try to ask him about your family he tries to change the subject. I'm not really complaining, though. He spent a long time with me here in the hospital wing, and we played exploding snap, which was pretty fun. He's pretty good at getting me happy when I'm feeling sad. I'm sorry, I'm just writing random stuff now._

 _Anyway, I hope that you're having a good day and that it's less painful than mine. I'll eagerly wait for your next letter (because it's not like I've got much else to do)._

 _Your friend,_

 _Harry_

Harry was released from the hospital wing on Sunday evening, and the first thing he did was head to the Owlery where, sure enough, Hedwig had a letter waiting for him.

 _21 September, 1991_

 _Dear Harry,_

 _I'm so sorry you got hurt. I hope you're feeling better now. I'm glad that you enjoyed your first Quidditch practice anyway, and that you aren't going to give up because of your injury. Quidditch is amazing. I really want to play in a real game. Quidditch injuries are fairly common, I guess. Wizards are tougher than muggles though, so it's really rare for anyone to die from Quidditch. I've gotten plenty of scrapes and bruises from flying, but I've never gotten hurt very bad. The brooms we have at the Burrow are kind of slow, and we're not allowed to fly them very high, because we can't let muggles see us. I don't think you should worry too much about getting hurt, though. You just got unlucky this time. I don't know why Wood was making you dodge a Bludger at night when you've only been flying for a week. That's crazy!_

 _In a real game, or even a practice, you'll have the twins to protect you from Bludgers, and they're pretty good at what they do. I'll even write them and tell them that they'd better take extra good care of you. I'm glad to hear that Ron's already looking after you. I don't why he doesn't want to talk about us, but you're right, he's a fun guy. I wish he would write me, though._

 _As for what my mum and I do, it's not very exciting. We spend most of the time doing school at home. That's how most wizard kids learn reading and writing and maths and that sort of stuff. Mum's a pretty good teacher, because at this point she's already taught the same stuff to six other Weasley kids. It's a lot easier for her now that its just her and me. When Ron and the twins were still at home she had her hands pretty full. She also makes me help with the cooking and cleaning (more than my brothers ever had to do, which is totally unfair, because I hate cooking). When I'm not doing school or chores, I read, or play outside, or visit my friend Luna, or write letters to you! I also play chess with Dad (although neither of us is nearly as good as Ron), and sometimes he lets me help with his tinkering with muggle stuff, which is always fun. (Also, what's a telly? I don't think I've ever heard Dad mention that). And then when Mum and Dad are asleep I sneak out and fly, almost every night._

 _It's kind of silly, I have so many things to do, and I get all the attention from my parents now, but I end up feeling lonely and sad a lot of the time. I guess I'm not very grateful. I am really grateful that you've kept writing me, though. At least I have two friends to talk to. That's a lot better than none. It's still not enough, though. You should make friends besides me and Ron. If you look for them, there's gotta be non-Weasleys at Hogwarts who can be your friends rather than just fans._

 _Oh drat, I just realized that I forgot to ask Dad about muggles, and I think he and Mum are already asleep. I guess I'll ask him tomorrow. That will give me something to put in the next letter. This one's already long enough, and I'm sure you rather get it quickly._

 _Let me know what you've been learning about in your classes. I'm curious about what you spend your days on._

 _Your Friend,_

 _Ginny_

Harry was sorry that Ginny was still feeling lonely, but he felt still more sure that his decision to write to her and do his part to alleviate that loneliness at least a bit was the right decision. Reading about Ginny's days made him realize just how much he had missed out on living with the Dursleys. He was sure that besides reading and maths, Ginny, by virtue of being taught in a wizarding household, would be learning all kinds of things about magic and the wizarding world that he didn't know. And having a dad who would play games with you and let you help with his work sounded amazing.

Harry realized that her didn't even know what kind of work his dad had done after he graduated from Hogwarts. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had always told him that his parents had been unemployed hooligans, but since they had lied about his parents dying in a car crash, Harry was sure that they had lied about everything and his parents were in fact wonderful people. He wondered if he could get Hagrid to tell him more about his parents. Perhaps he should visit the groundskeeper on his own sometime and ask. Ginny was right after all, he probably shouldn't hang out only with Ron all the time.

As he thought about the idea of making other friends, he realized how little he knew about the other Gryffindors in his year. He assumed that none of them were interested in him as more than a curiosity, that none of them would be real friends. But perhaps they were just a bit shy. Ginny had certainly been rather nervous in her first letter. Harry resolved that this week he would make sure to have at least one individual conversation with each of the other Gryffindor witches and wizards in his year. There weren't very many of them, so it shouldn't be too hard. Perhaps making friends was a skill he could practice.

* * *

Author's Note: Some of Wood's lines are taken verbatim from _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone_. I didn't think that any of the ripples of my change would have reached Wood yet. These words are not mine, nor are any other ideas I have borrowed from Rowling.

I enjoyed seeing your reactions to the last chapter. It was interesting to see people's different impressions of Molly. Please keep the reviews coming! I'll keep writing regardless, but it makes me happy to hear what people are thinking about my story ^_^

Tune in next week to get Arthur Weasley's perspective on muggles.


	7. A Defense of Muggles

On Sunday morning, at breakfast, Ginny asked her Dad Harry's question.

"Hey Dad, how do you know that there isn't anything really different between us and muggles?"

Arthur Weasley looked up from his toast.

"Has someone been telling you that there is a difference?"

"No, but I know that there are some people who say that we're better than muggles. You and Mum have always told me that they're wrong, but I want to know how you know that."

"I guess I'd say that I know it because I've seen a lot of muggles, and they're all fascinating people. They're clearly just as clever as we are at coming up with new inventions, even though they don't have magic. Why, some of their ideas are so clever that we've appropriated—that means stolen—them, like the Hogwarts Express or the wizarding wireless. They've come up with all kinds of clever ways to talk to each other from far away without owls or patronuses, like the felly-tone and the kom-pewter. Lately they've even been making felly-tone's they can carry around with them! Plus, they manage to feed and house a hundred times more people than we have in the wizarding world. Being able to do all that without magic takes quite a lot of cleverness.

I can tell you that no animal, even a magical one, ever invents things like that. Muggles are certainly much smarter than any animal, and I think its pretty clear that they're smarter than the average wizard would be if you took his magic away, or we wouldn't have to take ideas from them. So clearly, the only thing to conclude is that they're just like us!"

"But just because they're smart doesn't mean they're like us. How do you know that muggles are nice people?"

"Well, Ginny, not all muggles are 'nice people'. Some of them can be quite nasty, and enjoy hurting other people. But there are wizards like that too. And wizards and muggles are both very good at hurting other people accidentally, particularly when we're scared or angry. But when you consider that pureblood wizardkind produced someone like You-Know-Who, and all the people who followed him, and that we all nearly killed each other just before you were born, I think you can say that just the fact that the muggles haven't all killed each other shows that can't be too much meaner than wizards."

"So you're saying that muggles aren't mean, because they haven't all killed each other yet?" Ginny was a bit disturbed that this was her father's best explanation.

"I'm saying that's good enough evidence to conclude they're not meaner than wizards. Unfortunately, that's not a very high bar. In actuality though, any random muggles you encounter is almost certainly perfectly nice and harmless. There are mean muggles out there, but the muggle government tends to keep them in line, just like the aurors deal with dark wizards."

Feel somewhat reassured, and having gotten a lot of information to think about from her dad, Ginny considered letting the topic drop. There was still one more question weighing on her mind, but she was not sure if her parents would appreciate her asking it. Her dad had been very responsive so far, however, so in the end, her curiosity won out.

"But even if muggles are as smart and as nice as wizards, aren't we better, just because we have magic?"

"Ginny!" cried her mother, butting into the conversation. "How can you even ask that? I did not raise you to be an arrogant muggle-hater!"

Before Ginny had a chance to rebut, Mr. Weasley talked his wife down.

"Molly, dear, It's a perfectly reasonable question. And if we don't give her answers to it, somebody else will. It's fine to have these kinds of questions, Ginny, and I'm glad you're asking us first."

"The thing is, if we can agree that wizard's aren't smarter than muggles, and we aren't nicer than muggles, then the only real reason we could still be better is because we're stronger than muggles. Nobody disagrees that we are stronger. We have magic, which makes us more powerful, and our bodies are just naturally tougher. And some wizards say that because of that, we have more rights than muggles do, we deserve to be treated better.

But that's actually a really dangerous way of thinking. Because it's really just another way of saying 'Might makes right', of saying that whoever's strongest should get their way. By that reasoning bullies are better than the people they beat up. That kind of thinking says that the ministry should be ruled by the most skilled aurors, the wizards best at fighting, even if they don't know anything about politics or leading people. That kind of thinking says that wizards who are old or injured are worth less than those who are young and healthy. A lot of people don't want to take it so far, but if you want to claim that being stronger than muggles makes us better than them, then this is where that idea leads. Ultimately, this is the kind of society that You-Know-Who was trying to bring about. He thought that he was better than everyone else just because he was stronger.

Your mother and I have a different way of thinking, though. We believe that every person, everyone who can think and feel, is equally valuable, and that if some of us are stronger, we should use that strength to help the people who aren't quite as strong. That's why I do the work I do in the ministry. I want to use the magic I'm lucky enough to have to help the muggles who don't deserve any less than I do, just because they happened to be born without magic. Does that make sense, Ginny?"

It did. Ginny wondered why she had never heard all this before. Then she realized that before she probably wouldn't have cared. She hadn't really been interested in her father's passion for muggles until Harry asked for her opinion about them. While she'd known that Harry Potter had been raised by muggles, her storybooks never made a big deal of it, and told of how he had amazing adventures with magical creatures, and was basically just like a child raised by wizards. Now that she'd talked (via writing at least) with the real Harry Potter, though, she knew that being raised by muggles had hugely influenced his life, and made him quite a bit different from children like her who grew up in the magical world. And thus, her curiosity about Harry's life had led to a curiosity about muggles.

She realized that, though she might be influencing Harry with her advice on avoiding trouble with Slytherin, he was influencing her also. She was pretty sure he was making her a better person. She knew enough to realize that what her father had just shared with her was special. For the first time, she thought she might realize why he was so excited about his work. Ginny hoped someday she could find something to be so passionate about.

"Thanks Dad. That makes sense. I think I see why you care so much about muggles now."

Her father smiled, and the conversation continued along more usual lines. Ginny remained thoughtful, wondering what kind of work she would do after Hogwarts, and vaguely feeling that her Dad's defense of muggles ought to have left her with another question.

After dinner, her dad offered to show her his newest project, and Ginny found herself unusually keen to see it. He led her out to the shed, where he had leaning against the walls several similar looking muggle contraptions, each of which had two large thin wheels, connected to each other by some kind of system of metal rods, with several other strange protrusions that Ginny wasn't quite sure how to describe. She felt like she might have seen these contraptions before somewhere, but she couldn't recall for sure where or what they were used for.

"What are those?" she asked, pointing at the objects.

"Those are what I wanted you to see!" Mr. Weasley said excitedly. "They're called 'bicycles,' and muggles use them to get around. Here, let me show you!" He took one of the bicycles off of the wall, and began to demonstrate how it was used.

"See, you sit on this part, sort of like how you would sit on a broom, and then your hands hold onto these bars, and you can turn them to change directions. But the really clever part is how they get it to move without magic. You put your feet here, and then you just keep pushing and it makes the wheels turn!"

Mr. Weasley rode the bicycle out of the storage shed and into the yard, and Ginny watched him wobble as he clumsily rode around the outside of the shed. Suddenly, he ran over a rock in the grass, lost his balance and pitched off onto the ground. This fall did nothing to diminish his good cheer: after a quick charm to heal his scrapes, he was back to describing this strange muggle vehicle to Ginny.

"I'm not very good, of course. There are muggles who can go much faster, and who don't fall off. They even have versions that run on eckeltricity like cars, and those ones can go really fast. Some wizards have learned how to ride the things before—I think that Sirius Black actually had one of the eckeltricity ones before he went bad—but I think that I actually understand how they work! I built this bicycle from parts, and as you can see, it works great!"

"Wow, that's really cool, Dad" said Ginny, slightly overwhelmed, but trying to be supportive.

"Do you want to give it a try?" he asked eagerly.

"I'd rather you let me ride a broom."

This was a topic Ginny brought up with her parents every few months. She was pretty sure that Dad wouldn't actually be upset at her flying, but Mum always told her that she was too young, and that there would be plenty of time to fly at Hogwarts and that flying wasn't very feminine, and Dad deferred to her meanness. Of course, Mum's opposition wasn't actually keeping Ginny from flying, but it would be nice to actually be able to fly during the day and not have to worry about getting caught, and so Ginny would periodically make sure that her parents' opinions on the matter hadn't changed.

"Ha, of course you would." Dad smiled. "I've actually been trying to get the bicycle to fly. I found a report at the ministry last month about a wizard who made a flying bicycle, but it doesn't say how he did it and I haven't been quite able to get the charms to work so far. I did make a pretty good substitute, though. If you prefer brooms to bicycles, you might want to give that one a try." He gestured to the second bicycle, still leaning against the wall of the shed.

"Just don't let your Mum see you."

Curious now, Ginny walked over and tried to feel the second bike. To her considerable surprise, her hand went right through the front wheel, as if it wasn't there. When she tried to touch the seat, it felt like a smooth wooden rod, rather than whatever a bicycle seat was supposed to feel like. The handlebars seemed to be the front of the wooden rod, and where the back wheel appeared to be she felt stiff bristles.

"It's a broom!" she exclaimed.

"It sure is! Give it a try. I promise not to tell Mum."

Ginny was very happy to oblige. As she twisted the broom around to maneuver it out of the shed, she noticed that its illusionary wheels were turning. To her even greater surprise, when she looked down at her legs, they appeared to be turning the pedals, even though she could feel that they were firmly clenching the broom.

"It's a pretty good illusion, isn't it?" her dad called out.

"I had to invent a whole new spell for it, and I never would have been able to do it before I built a bicycle. It makes me wonder what kind of magic we could accomplish if we really understood other kinds of muggle tools. Of course, there's probably not anything useful about a broom that looks like you're riding a bicycle, but at least now we know that its something that can be made."

Ginny rode the bicycle broom around the yard as her father rambled on, taking care not to go too fast or too high, since she didn't want to give away just how much she'd practiced. She agreed with her father that the bicycle was probably a completely useless creation, but if it let her ride a broom, she wasn't going to complain.

Despite Ginny's precautions, her Dad commented on her riding.

"You seem quite comfortable on that broom, Ginny. I think you might be a natural. I really should talk to Molly about letting you learn to fly."

"Would you?" asked Ginny excitedly.

"I'll do my best. You know how stubborn your mother is. But she let Ron ride by the time he was your age, so there's precedent."

"Thanks Dad!" Ginny jumped nimbly off the bicycle broom and gave her father a hug. He might talk a lot, and use words that were hard to understand (what in the world was a "precedent"?), and he might be a bit too interested in muggle inventions, but her Dad really cared about her, and listened to her, and tried to figure out what she wanted, and Ginny appreciated that a lot.

* * *

Harry's next letter arrived on Thursday.

 _24 September, 1991_

 _Dear Ginny,_

 _I'm not sure how to tell you what a telly is. It's a box with pictures that move, kind of like a wizard photograph, but the pictures keep changing, and all the tellies can show the same pictures at the same time. Muggles use them for news and for telling stories. The Dursleys had one and sometimes when they weren't paying attention to me, I got to watch it. I actually learned a lot from that. If I use other muggle words that you don't know, please continue to tell me. It's easy for me to forget what you don't know about (sorry about that)._

 _You asked what I've been learning in my classes, so I guess I should talk about that too. Classes here are really cool, although they're definitely harder than my muggle school. I'm not sure how I'll keep up with all the homework now that I have three Quidditch practices a week._

 _I've already told you about potions. Snape has continued to be nasty. I don't like the way he teaches. He expects us to read the book before class, and then understand it, he doesn't seem to do any actual teaching. We basically just make a random potion every week. Some of them are pretty specialized healing potions, like the cure for boils, and some of them just seem completely useless, like the forgetfulness potion. Why would you want to try to forget something?_

 _Charms is pretty neat. It's the most like I thought magic would be like, learning how to wave my wand and make things happen. Mostly we've been learning how to make lights and colors come from our wands. I'm pretty good at the practical parts, the spells seem to work as well for me as for anyone. The essays are a lot harder though. Professor Flitwick has also been drilling us a lot on the theory behind charms, and I feel like I don't get it at all. It's really cool to feel like I can do real magic, though!_

 _Transfiguration is probably my second favorite class after charms, even though its really hard, because its the other class where we spend most of the class actually doing magic. McGonagall is almost as strict as Snape, but she's only mean to me when I've actually done something wrong, so I don't mind too much. So far we've mostly been learning how to go from one small object to another, like making matches into needles. Apparently it's easier to transfigure between things that aren't alive and are the same sizes and shapes. There's a lot of other details that go into making transifgurations easy or hard, but I don't really get those either._

 _Herbology's not as exciting as charms or transfiguration, but it's kind of fun too, and its nice that its not as hard. It kind of reminds me of working in Aunt Petunia's garden, but it's cool because there's so many different kinds of plants, and I'd never even heard of any of them before coming here. Professor Sprout is really nice, and when she explains it I usually feel like I actually understand how the plants we're learning about work. Plants aren't as complicated as spells._

 _Defense Against the Dark Arts seems like it could be cool, but it's not, because Quirrell is teaching it, and he's not cool at all. He stutters a lot, and he uses really big words, like he's trying to show how smart he is, so it's really hard to understand what he says. He also stinks of garlic (he's afraid of vampires for some reason). And whenever we practice spells, he just sits there and stares into space instead of trying to help us do them better. I still think it sounds like a cool subject, though, if we could get a better teacher._

 _I don't actually have to take Flying anymore, since I'm on the Quidditch team_

 _Astronomy is kinda different, because it's late at night and on top of a tower. I'm not really sure how it's magical, though. Professor Sinistra is okay, but she makes us memorize a bunch of facts and I never know why they're useful, except for showing off. So now I know a bunch of random astronomy facts like the names of Jupiter's moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto._

 _History of Magic is probably the worst class. The guy who teaches it, Professor Binns, is a ghost, and he just talks without paying any attention to what the students are doing and he's really boring. He also doesn't seem to look at our essays very hard, so I don't usually pay attention in his class. He talks a lot about goblins, I think._

 _I also tried to follow your advice about making more friends. I talked with more of the other Gryffindor first years. It didn't go too well, though. None of them are fun to talk with like you or Ron. I don't think any of them actually want to be friends with me._

 _Hermione is really bossy, and gets annoyed at all the things I don't understand from class. Dean and Seamus are always hanging out together and I felt kind of awkward trying to hang out with them. They also tried to ask me a bunch of questions about Voldemort, and how I got so good at Quidditch, and what my family was like, and I didn't really have good answers. Neville I feel kind of sorry for, because he seems like he's bad at everything, and McGonagall and Snape pick on him and he gets detention a lot. But he's not much fun to be around, because he spends most of his time on homework (even though it doesn't seem to be helping him) and he whines a lot about his Gran and the teachers, and how hard everything is for him, so talking to him just makes me feel kind of sad._

 _I'm not too upset about it, though. I still think I'm pretty lucky to have you and Ron (and Hagrid I guess) as friends._

 _Wow, this letter ended up pretty long! It's a lot easier to write 12 inches to you than it is to write them for McGonagall (which is what Hermione wanted me to do tonight). I hope you've been having a good week. As usual, I want to read your reply soon!_

 _Your Friend,_

 _Harry_

 _PS: Do you want me to tell Ron that it would be nice if he wrote to his sister? I'm sure he just forgot._

Ginny enjoyed reading about Harry's impressions of the Hogwarts classes. She felt like she had learned nearly as much about them in one letter from Harry as she had in all the stories her brothers had told her. As she had many times before, she wished she were just one year older, so that she could be there experiencing the classes alongside Harry. She was sad that he was having trouble making friends among his housemates, although she wasn't surprised that most of the Gryffindors weren't quite sure how to act around a famous kid like Harry Potter, particularly when he didn't act like they expected him to, and didn't know the things they expected him to know.

Ginny was embarrassed as she read the kinds of questions that Dean and Seamus asked which made Harry uncomfortable. She was pretty sure she'd been asking the same kinds of questions when she first wrote to Harry. Of course, she knew better now, and she sincerely hoped she could do a better job of not annoying him in the future. Thankfully, Harry seemed to have forgiven her for asking him about stuff he didn't want to talk about.

Harry hadn't really written her any questions this time, but Ginny's interaction with her father over the weekend gave her plenty to write about.

 _26 September, 1991_

 _Dear Harry,_

 _Thanks for telling me about your classes. That was really interesting. I'm glad to hear that the rest of the teachers are better than Snape and that you're having fun learning spells. Don't let me distract you from your essays too much!_

 _It's too bad you didn't find friends. Maybe you could try to meet people in other houses? I know Ron's likes to talk about how Gryffindors are the best by far, but the twins have plenty of friends in Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. They might be a little less focused on fame than Gryffindors._

 _The main thing I wanted to write you about today, though, is muggles! I talked with Dad about them on Sunday, and actually learned a lot. He pointed out that the fact that muggles are able to invent all these machines (like the telly) that wizards can't even understand, shows that they're pretty smart. And the fact that they manage to get along without killing each other shows that they aren't completely horrible people. They can be really nasty, but so can wizards. I mean, a lot of wizards are really mean to muggles, and we had that big war with You-Know-Who back when you and me were being born, and then back around when my parents were being born there was this big war with a dark wizard called Grindelwald._

 _So according to Dad, and I think it makes sense too, the only real difference between us and muggles is that we're stronger than them. And we can't say that being stronger makes us better, because that would be like saying that bullies are better than people who get beat up, or that adults are better than kids, or that the most powerful wizard should get to make all the rules, which isn't fair at all._

 _So Dad says that actually we should be trying to use our magic to help muggles, because they aren't quite as lucky as we are. That's what he's doing at the ministry, and I think he's right. I didn't realize it before, but Dad's job is actually kind of cool. I don't know if he really understands muggles, but I think that trying to use magic to help them seems like the right thing to do, even if they can be as messed up as wizards._

 _Of course, all that thinking still doesn't do me a whole lot of good, because I'm not allowed to even see any muggles, but its nice to feel like I understand why people like Malfoy don't like muggles (it's because they're bullies!) and why they're wrong. It seems like we could help muggles a lot more if we didn't have to worry about that annoying statute of secrecy, though._

 _Oh, also, Dad showed me a bicycle he made, which was pretty cool. Have you ever ridden a bicycle? I didn't want to try it, but he let me ride a broom he disguised to look like a bicycle, and that was pretty cool._

 _I hope that your Quidditch practices this week have been less painful than the one last week. I always look forward to your next letter!_

 _Your Friend,_

 _Ginny_

 _PS: Telling Ron to write me wouldn't help anything. The fact that he's forgotten me is the whole problem. Last year I was his best friend! Now he doesn't even miss me. It's so not fair._

As she sent the letter off with Hedwig, Ginny paused to wonder what her year would have been like if she hadn't made friends with Harry. It probably would have been really boring and involved a lot more fights with her mum. She was quite lucky, she decided.

* * *

Author's Note: Thanks Gin110881, scrappy8, and sbmcneil for reviewing the last chapter! When there aren't many reviews, I value the feedback I get even more!

I realize that Arthur's defense of muggles is, at the very least, simplistic, but Ginny is 11 and hasn't expressed a lot of interest in this topic before.

The next chapter will start into showing what Harry's up to during a month that's completely skipped in canon. His quest to make friends will continue.


	8. Lacking Friends and Parents

Harry got Ginny's letter at his Saturday morning visit to the Owlery. It left him with a lot to ponder as he slowly walked back to Gryffindor tower,.

First, he thought about Ginny's advice to make friends outside of Gryffindor. He wasn't quite sure how to get started with that. It was one thing to walk up to one of his housemates in the evening and ask what they were up to, or to try to start up a conversation with whoever sat around him at lunch (although even these things were a little bit nerve-wracking—he was more accustomed to hiding from other children than to befriending them). But making friends from other houses was another matter entirely. They sat at different tables for meals, and classes were usually partitioned along house lines as well. They didn't share the same common room, so Harry would have to go out of his way to look for them elsewhere in the castle. While Harry was pretty sure that the professors wouldn't let the students find anything truly dangerous, he still didn't like wandering the castle, with all of its confusing staircases and mischievous ghosts, on his own.

On the other hand, Harry wondered if he was just trying to make excuses for himself. Perhaps the reason he hadn't made friends with any of the Gryffindors, and couldn't see himself making friends with any of the Ravenclaws or Hufflepuffs, was just that he was bad at making friends. After all, he wasn't quite sure what he had done to become friends with Ron and Ginny. It had just sort of happened. Perhaps making friends was more complicated than he'd realized and Harry just didn't know how to do it. Harry really wished he'd had someone to explain all this sort of stuff to him. The way friendships worked seemed something too complicated for him to puzzle out on his own.

Resolving that the issue of friends was something to worry about another time, Harry turned to thinking about the rest of Ginny's letter and the things she had said about muggles and wizards. He wasn't sure whether he'd wanted to hear that muggles were the same as wizards or not, and now that he had heard it, he wasn't sure how he felt about it. On the one hand, having lived among muggles, he was pretty sure that they didn't deserve the scorn that the Slytherins like Malfoy heaped on them. On the other hand, he realized that part of him had been sort of hoping that being a wizard made him better than the Dursleys—that he could excuse them for their behavior because they were "just muggles," and know that he himself would never do such a thing, and that he wouldn't have to worry about people like that in the magical world.

But Mr. Weasley's answer to Ginny hadn't given Harry any of the assurances which he only now realized he'd been hoping for. Rather than assuring him that muggles were good people, it seemed like Ginny was telling him that wizards were just as nasty as muggles. That meant that there were probably a lot of wizards just like the Dursleys or Dudley's friends at his old school. Harry thought that he had always suspected this was the case, but in his excitement over how everything in the magical world seemed better and more exciting than what he had grown up with, he had still been able to hope that maybe the people here were also genuinely better than the muggles he'd grown up with, and people like Malfoy were just very rare exceptions. Finding that this wasn't true left Harry a little disappointed. But he didn't let it bother him too much. He was used to being disappointed. He would just have to keep being careful who he trusted.

Harry was so engrossed in these thoughts, that he barely noticed that he'd reached the Gryffindor common room already. Absentmindedly giving the password to the fat lady, he was about to sit down for some intense brooding, when he saw Ron coming down the stairs.

"Hey Harry!" his best mate called out. "Ready for breakfast?"

Harry nodded his assent, still not quite in the mood to talk.

"I don't know how you always manage to get up so early." Ron continued. "I hate mornings. Breakfast is the only good thing about them."

Seeing Harry was not going to respond, Ron switched topics. "Say, how was Quidditch practice last night? Are Fred and George still teasing you about get knocked out by that Bludger?"

And so, Harry found himself compelled to actually participate in the conversation, and before long he was feeling quite a bit better. He reflected idly that it was quite a good thing that he had Ron as his friend to help remind him to think of cheerful and silly things, or he would probably spend a lot of time sitting alone thinking sad and serious thoughts. This was something he had practiced a lot in his cupboard, but he realized it was probably a habit he should be trying to get away from. So resolved, he let even this introspective thought slip away, and devoted his full attention to discussing Quidditch with Ron.

* * *

That night, he wrote his reply to Ginny. The good thing about Saturdays was that there was no homework due the next day, so Harry never felt guilty about spending his evening writing to his friend.

 _28 September, 1991_

 _Dear Ginny,_

 _Thanks for talking with your Dad about muggles. I guess it makes sense to say that muggles can't be that bad if they manage to get along with each other. I guess I haven't actually seen muggles do anything really mean to each other. Maybe its just freaks like us that they can't get along with. Or maybe most wizards are nastier than the ones I've been talking too. Either way, I guess it's probably good that we mostly stay away from muggles. I can understand why there's a statute of secrecy. Helping people is nice, but if muggles knew about us, they might decide to hurt us because they don't think we're helping them enough. Sometimes its better to do nice things when nobody's looking at you._

 _I haven't actually ridden a bicycle, but I've seen them before. Dudley had one, but he didn't use it much. I think making it go was too much work for him. He could be pretty lazy. The broom bicycle sounds pretty cool, though. You could pretend you have a flying bike, or you could ride close to the ground, and muggles wouldn't realize you had a broom. I wonder if I could fly around near home with something like that?_

 _Quidditch practices have been going well. I haven't gotten hit by any more Bludgers. Fred and George have been really protective. They must have gotten your letter. I'm getting better at seeing the Snitch, and better at flying too. The Nimbus 2000 can go really fast! I don't usually get close to its fastest speed. The rest of the team also seems to like me, which is nice. Our chasers, Angelina, Alicia, and Katie, work really well together. Wood thinks we have a good chance at the Quidditch cup this year!_

 _I'm really looking forward to playing an actual game of Quidditch. Our first official match isn't until November, but Wood's planning a casual scrimmage with Ravenclaw two weeks from now. I hope that I can still get the Snitch when there's actually another team's seeker to worry about._

 _I'm not really sure about making friends outside Gryffindor. I'll keep thinking about it, but it seems kind of hard. I don't usually see or sit with people from other houses. I'm actually okay with just having two friends (three if you count Hagrid). It might not seem like a lot to you, but for me, this is a big record._

 _I'm sorry that you don't have any friends at home with you anymore though. I wish you could have come to school this year. Then Ron couldn't ignore you, and we could talk and I wouldn't have to wait three days to hear back from you. I guess you must have other friends, though. Who are they? What are they like?_

 _Your Friend,_

 _Harry_

Harry delivered the letter to Hedwig at his Sunday morning visit to the Owlery, and watched her fly off towards the burrow. As he was about to head back to Gryffindor tower, he ran into Hagrid entering the Owlery.

"Harry! I wasn' 'specting to be seeing yeh here again so soon! Are yeh writin' letters to somebody?"

Harry considered lying to Hagrid as well, it was still an ingrained habit for him to always try to determine what his listener would want to hear before saying anything. He decided, however, that, unlike Ron, Hagrid probably wouldn't care that he was writing Ginny.

"Yeah, I've been writing to Ron's sister Ginny. She's been a bit lonely now that all her brothers are away from home."

"That's right kind of yeh to do, Harry. I 'spect she appreciates it a lot."

"I guess? I know that I like writing with her. Ginny's a good friend now."

Suddenly Harry remembered that he'd had something he'd wanted to ask.

"Hey Hagrid, could you tell me more about my parents? The Dursleys never talked about them much, and I'm pretty sure that most of things they did tell me were lies, like the fact that they died in a car accident. What were my parents like in school? What did they do afterwards?"

"James and Lily were as talented a witch and wizard as yeh ever did see. Between 'em I think they must have gotten 'Outstanding's on all their OWL and NEWTs. James was quite the prankster. Rather like Fred and George, he and his friends were. They were always making people laugh, and making sure the dirty Slytherins knew their place. Drove Filch and McGonagall crazy, 'ey did. Lily, though, she was prob'ly the kindest witch in the whole school. She had friends in all the houses, and she always got on well with the beasties too. All the teachers loved her. James had been in love with her fer the longest time, but she couldn' stand 'im, until seventh year. 'Ey were head boy and girl together, and I 'spect James guessed that if he didn't start actin' more grown-up, Lily wasn't ever gonna like 'im."

"Once 'ey got together, though, 'ey really loved each other. But 's so sad that 'ey was comin' out of school at such a bad time. James wanted ter go on an' play Quidditch, he was a Chaser, yeh know. An' Lily wanted to be a healer, work at Mungo's I think. Potions were always her best subject. But she didn' have the time ter to the trainin' and James didn' have time to be playin' ball, because there was a war goin' on, and Dumbledore needed their help. They were true Gryffindors, your parents. 'Ey fought real brave, an' they never complained, even when 'ey had baby you to take care of, or when 'ey had to go inter hidin'. 'Ey kept fighting all the way to the end. Yeh should be proud of yer mum and dad, Harry. Yer magical folks were the best sort."

Hagrid had tears in his eyes at this point, he was clearly emotional at the memory of Harry's parents. Not wanting to upset him with more questions, Harry thanked him profusely for the things he had shared, and left the Owlery, thinking on the things Hagrid had told him. He liked Fred and George, a dad who was like them in school sounded like a fun person. And he already knew that he'd gotten his love of Quidditch from his dad. He hoped that his own playing wouldn't be cut short by a war. As much as he admired his father for what he had done, Harry didn't really want that kind of chance to prove his bravery.

He was even more interested in what he'd learned about his mum. He was rather surprised that potions had been her favorite subject. He wondered if Snape was already teaching back when his mum was in school. It was hard for him to imagine anyone enjoying Snape's teaching, at least anyone not in Slytherin. He also wondering about how healing worked in the magical world, and what had attracted his mother to it. He thought Madame Pomfrey might be able to tell him something, but he didn't think he knew the woman well enough to ask her.

He also found himself thinking back to what Hagrid had said about how his mum had made friends in all the houses (even Slytherin, he supposed). It reminded him of the advice Ginny had given him in her last letter. Maybe she did have a point after all.

* * *

On Wednesday, Hedwig brought him Ginny's latest letter.

 _30 September, 1991_

 _Dear Harry,_

 _I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying Quidditch practices. Those sound like a lot of fun. I've also been flying more lately. Dad finally convinced Mum to let me ride a broom, so now I can practice in the afternoons as well as at night. Of course, Mum insists on watching me, and she doesn't like it when I do anything she considers "too daring," but I'm not complaining. Having more chances to fly is always better, as I'm sure you agree._

 _I don't want to have an argument about muggles, but I don't think you're right about the Statute of Secrecy. I don't see why muggles would hurt us for helping them. Even if they don't think that we're doing enough, how would causing trouble make us more helpful? It doesn't make any sense. And if we really want to help muggles with our magic, I don't think that we can do it very well while we're hiding from them. How can we help people if we don't know what help they need?_

 _Wizards don't really understand muggles at all. My dad knows more than almost anybody else, but even he has a lot of things he doesn't understand at all. You probably knew about bicycles for a long time, but he just learned what they were. So he can help the muggles not get hurt by wizards, but he can't help them with any of their muggle problems, because we don't even know what muggle problems are. And he can't make other wizards understand that muggles aren't bad, because he doesn't really know any muggles, so he can't really prove they're not nasty like the Malfoys say they are. I still really wish I could meet actual muggle kids. Stupid accidental magic. There's got to be some way I can learn to control it before going to Hogwarts._

 _Actually, I just wish I could meet more kids. You asked me about my friends. I guess that the way I told you should make more friends, you were thinking that I'm some popular girl with lots of friends and I was thinking you should be like me. But what I meant was, I know what it's like to be friends with only Weasleys. Before the twins left, it was okay, but for the last two years it was just me and Ron. Ron's great and all, but I would get sick of him sometimes. He likes to tell me that I can't do things, like fly a broom, because I'm a girl. As if that matters!_

 _The wizarding world is so small in Britain, that its hard to meet other wizard kids before Hogwarts, because not many of them live nearby, and Mum doesn't let me use the Floo on my own (Although part of that might be worry that we couldn't afford enough Floo powder). Honestly, though, I think I'm lucky she lets me visit Luna._

 _Luna Lovegood is my only friend besides you who isn't a Weasley. She lives just over the hill, and she's my age, so she's starting at Hogwarts next year too, and I guess you'll get to meet her. It's nice to get away from my brothers and hang out with another girl sometimes, but I can't handle too much of Luna either. She's very creative—she has all of these wonderful ideas for magical creatures and places, and she'll draw these beautiful pictures of them. It's always fun to hear her tell stories. The problem is, she believes that almost everything she comes up with is real, so I think she's a bit mad. She also doesn't have much interest in Quidditch or anything that involves running around, which is no fun at all. Sometimes we'll make art together, and I'm always embarrassed at how bad my stuff is compared to hers, but usually we just talk and I play along with her stories._

 _We talk about real stuff sometimes too, though. Luna always has interesting ideas. She thinks about things a lot, and she has a lot of opinions on things like the Ministry and Hogwarts, and international relations (I wouldn't even know what that was without Luna). I think part of that is because her dad runs a newspaper. It's called the Quibbler, and it's as odd as Luna is. Actually, now that I'm telling you this, I just thought that I should talk to Luna about muggles and the statute of secrecy. I'm sure she'd have an opinion._

 _Anyway, Luna's nice, and I have fun with her, but we don't like a lot of the same things, and I don't think she really understands my feelings. It's not her fault, we just think very differently. Luna always seems calm and happy, and she doesn't mind being alone at all, and I don't get it. I get frustrated and angry, and bored a lot, and I can't wait to get to Hogwarts with you and Ron and everybody else. I'm sure when I'm there I'll make lots of friends._

 _No matter how many friends I make, though, Harry, I'll never stop being yours. It makes me really happy that even though you're at Hogwarts you keep writing to a ten-year-old you've never met._

 _Your Friend,_

 _Ginny Weasley_

Harry was surprised to read that Ginny didn't really have any more friends than he did. He'd assumed that all wizarding children had lots of friends, since they didn't have mean cousins to drive them away, but now that he considered it, he could see how the small number of wizards and the need for secrecy could make it hard for a girl like Ginny to meet other kids. He realized that their friendship really was just as big a deal to Ginny as it was to him.

Having had that realization, he decided that he shouldn't keep Ginny waiting longer than necessary, and so in History of Magic, when no one was looking at him (he'd made sure not to sit next to Ron), he began to write his reply. By Thursday morning he was done.

 _2 October, 1991_

 _Dear Ginny,_

 _I'm glad your mum is finally letting fly. Hopefully after she realizes how good you are she'll trust you enough to let you fly by yourself. I can't wait until we can fly together. It would be fun to have someone my age who can keep up with me. You'd better try out for the team next year. If they broke the first-years rule for me, I'm sure they could break it for you too._

 _I don't want to have an argument about muggles, or anything else, either. But I think as long as we're not angry at each other, it's not really an argument. So I don't mind hearing what you think. I guess I just don't trust muggles as much as you do. I don't think they always do things that are reasonable. They're afraid of us, I guess, and that makes them do stupid stuff if they see magic. So we can't risk letting them see magic. I'm curious what Luna thinks, though._

 _Luna sounds nice. I'll have to meet her sometime (of course I want to see you first). I'm rubbish at art too, but I'm sure that her pictures and stories would be fun. What's the Floo, by the way? I don't think I've heard of it._

 _I'm sorry to hear that you haven't grown up with very many friends either. I guess that I had assumed you'd have a lot of them because of how nice and friendly you are, but I see how it could be hard to meet other kids in the wizard world. It's weird for me to think of not knowing hardly any other kids your age, because I've been going to school with hundreds of other kids for years. It also seems like Ron is really being a prat by not writing you if you two were best mates before he came here. I'm sorry that I've kind of stolen your brother from you._

 _I've kept thinking about making more friends. I guess I am kind of lucky to be here with so many other wizarding kids. I don't have much practice making friends, though, so I don't think I'm quite sure how to do it. I'm pretty sure that's it's more complicated than just going up to someone and saying "let's be friends". I don't know if you know any more than I do about friend making, but even if you don't have any practice making friends either, I'd like to know how you would try to make someone a friend._

 _Also, I wanted to tell you, I ran into Hagrid the other day, and he told me more about my parents! Apparently they were both really smart. My Dad was a big prankster, like Fred and George, and he was a good enough Chaser that he might have played professionally. He didn't get to though, because after school, Dumbledore needed my parents to help fight You-Know-Who, and then You-Know-Who killed them (I'm glad he's dead now!)._

 _My Mum was really friendly, like you, and she was apparently really good at potions and wanted to be a healer at some place called Mungo's. Do you know what that is? I realized I don't know much of anything about healing, either. Do wizards get sick the same as muggles? How much can be healed with magic? Is it really hard to learn? Does it use a lot of potions?_

 _There's still so much about magic I don't know! Thanks for the way you keep answering all my silly questions. I'm really glad that you keep writing to me too._

 _Your Friend,_

 _Harry_

 _PS: Hedwig is also glad that we keep writing. She gets more exercise than all the other owls, and I think that carrying letters all the time makes her feel important._

After seeing Hedwig off, Harry sat in the corridor outside the Owlery, and pulled out his half finished transfiguration essay. It was due in only two hours. Harry was afraid he might miss breakfast.

* * *

Author's Note: I'm so sorry that this chapter is so late! I ended up re-writing almost the whole thing at the last minute, because as I was going over and re-reading it I was just less and less happy with what I'd written, and I decided that I'd rather deliver a better chapter a day or two late than a mediocre chapter on time. Hopefully you all agree that this was the right decision. If you think that this version is still bad, please tell me what I could do to make it better. The next chapter should still be out on Saturday, as usual.

Also, wow, the last chapter got so many reviews! Thanks everybody, I'm glad a bunch of you enjoyed it! It's probably my favorite chapter so far. I think it's really interesting to explore the issues of wizard-muggle interaction from the perspective of two kids, and I like writing Arthur. (Hagrid, on the other hand, is pretty tricky for me)

Tune in next week to actually meet Luna, and to continue all these fun discussions about muggles and friends, and Harry's parents. (It's interesting how the letter format tends to lead to a bunch of discussions going on in parallel, because the kids need to react to the stuff in the previous letter, but also talk about things that have happened in the meantime. Hopefully the frequent jumping between topics doesn't make the narrative too confusing)


	9. Muggles and Gorgons

Ginny found that she was bored significantly less often now that she could fly in the afternoons as well as at night. Inspired by Harry's description of his practice with Wood, and his encouragement that she should try out for the Gryffindor team, Ginny decided that it was time for her to start flying with balls, so that she could practice actual Quidditch, rather than just flying. Of course, the Weasleys couldn't afford a real set of Quidditch balls, so she had to make do with substitutes.

The Quaffle was basically just a regular ball, and they did have some of those, so it was easy enough for Ginny to practice shooting. She slowly built up the distance from which she could throw the ball and consistently get it to fly through the hoop. She couldn't practice passing without another flyer, but she was eventually able to persuade her mother to throw walnuts for her to catch so she could get a little practice seeking. It didn't hurt to practice for all the positions she could, after all, and if her mum was going to insist on watching her, she might as well be useful. Of course, Mrs. Weasley tried not to throw the walnuts too fast or too far from Ginny, and Ginny was careful not to try too many moves that her paranoid mother might consider "dangerous", but it was still fun, and Ginny was very grateful to her dad for getting her this opportunity.

Of course, while practicing Quidditch was tons of fun, and school with her mum was interesting enough, the best parts of Ginny's week were always the times when she got Harry's letters. She tried to reply to them as quickly as she could, without drawing her parents suspicion, and so on Friday afternoon, she was happily writing a reply to Harry's latest message.

 _4 October, 1991_

 _Dear Harry,_

 _Do you really think they'd let me play Quidditch in my first year? I mean, I know they did for you, but you're Harry Potter, and Gryffindor really needed a Seeker. Next year none of your players are going to be graduating. I'd be even younger than you were, because my birthday is almost two weeks after yours. Even if I was good enough, which I'm not sure I would be, I'd feel pretty bad if I ended up kicking somebody else off the team._

 _If I'm bothering you by talking about muggles more, let me know, but I've still been thinking about it. I can kind of understand not trusting muggles. And I know some of them would want to hurt us. So it makes sense, maybe, not to tell everyone about magic. But all the muggles are different! They can't all be bad, can they? Why not just find the good ones, and only show magic to them, and then they can help us use magic to help everybody? Why not do that?_

 _Sorry for not explaining about the Floo, by the way. I'm bad at remembering what stuff you aren't going to know. The Floo network is one of the ways that wizards get around. It connects a bunch of fireplaces all over the country. To use it, you just throw some Floo powder into the fireplace, and then it turns green, and then you say where you want to go and then you jump in and then you pop out of the fireplace you're trying to get to. It's really handy for kids like us who can't apparate yet. (Apparation is a spell that lets you just appear anywhere that you can think of, but it's kinda dangerous so you have to be an adult to be allowed to do it)_

 _You're right that I don't know a lot about making friends, either. My mum tells me that the best way to make friends is to be friendly, though, so maybe that's an easy place to start? I think you've just got to be yourself and not worry too much about it. Making friends can't be that hard, I mean, everybody's done it, right?_

 _I haven't learned a whole lot about healing, but I'll tell you all the stuff I know. St. Mungo's is the biggest wizarding hospital. It's in London somewhere. I don't really know how big it is or what it looks like, because I've never had to go there. Wizards are pretty good at healing all the sicknesses and injuries that come up in normal life. We have potions for stuff like colds and fevers. And a healer can fix up recent cuts and scrapes with a few charms. Unless your arm actually falls off or you get hit with a dark curse or something, pretty much anything you can do to yourself can get fixed by magic._

 _Of course, there's also magical diseases, like Dragon Pox. Those are a lot harder to deal with, and they can mess up your magic, not just your body. Luckily they're not very common, but some of them can be really easy to get from someone else who's sick, so every once and a while there's a whole bunch of people getting sick at once._

 _I don't know a whole lot about what goes into being a healer, but I'm pretty sure that it's a lot of work. You have to do a bunch of extra school after Hogwarts. I guess it kind of makes sense though, because if your healer messes up, they could really hurt you, so you want somebody who knows what they're doing._

 _What did you do when you got hurt before Hogwarts? It seems like life would be pretty painful without magic. Do you just build up a huge collection of scrapes and bruises? Or do you just have to be super careful not to hurt yourself? I know that with how often me and my brothers hurt each other it would be really bad it my mum couldn't fix it with magic._

 _Your Friend,_

 _Ginny_

As soon as she finished the letter, she gave it to Hedwig, who took off on the now familiar flight path to Hogwarts.

The next day was Saturday, and so Ginny asked her mum if she could go and see Luna, hoping that she could talk with Luna about the muggle question she and Harry had been pondering. Her mum insisted on walking her there, even though she complained that Luna's place was just over the hill and it was perfectly safe, and she was old enough to walk there herself.

Fortunately, however, Mrs. Weasley wasn't too keen on socializing with Xenophilius Lovegood, so after assuring herself that Luna's father was home and would watch the girls, she headed home, telling Ginny that she'd be back to pick her up before supper.

Luna was eager to show Ginny something she'd been working on. Apparently she'd decided to take up sculpture, because she pulled Ginny over to her backyard and showed her a statue she had been working on. It was about two feet high, and roughly carved, and depicted what Ginny was sure was meant to be a beast of some sort, since it was roughly in the shape of a long thing body with a head and eight legs. Without more details, however, she couldn't really tell what kind of creature it might be. The magical world had quite a bit more eight legged animals than the muggle world. Fortunately, Luna was more than happy to explain her work.

"I'm actually not sure what it is either. I think I know what it will be, but even that might just be excessive optimism. It turns out that stone is a lot harder to work with than paint."

"Well what is it going to be?"

"I want it to be a dragon. One of the eastern sorts, perhaps a Fireball. I haven't figured out to make the scales, though, so perhaps it isn't going to be a dragon after all. Are there any furry dragons?"

"I don't think so. Besides, would fur really be any easier to carve?"

"I think it would be. Because it would be softer, and this is a soft stone. Here, feel it!"

Feeling somewhat awkward, Ginny obliged. The stone did indeed feel softer than she expected it too, although it didn't really feel like fur.

"It actually feels kinda like soap." she remarked.

"Yes, this kind of stone is supposed to I think. That's what makes it good for learning carving. I don't know of any dragons with soapy scales, though, do you?"

"No I don't."

"Perhaps Charlie does. You should ask him."

"Maybe I will." Ginny was pretty sure she wouldn't.

"Of course, I suppose that whoever is looking at the statue will have to suspend disbelief no matter what, since dragons aren't actually made of stone. Unless it's a dragon that just saw a gorgon? Oh, I like that idea! Thanks Ginny! Do you know what kind of stone gorgons turn you into?"

"Erm, I'm not even sure what a gorgon is, Luna."

"Oh, they're really cool! They're like ladies, but instead of hair they have snakes, and if you look at them, they can turn you into stone."

"Oh yeah, I think I heard of those. They sounded scary."

"There aren't many of them left though, which is sad. They can't help what they look like, but people hunt them down because of how they kill the wizards who encounter them. And it's really hard to hide when you end up leaving a trail of statues behind you wherever you go."

"But if they're leaving behind trails of statues, isn't it right to be doing something to stop them? That means they're killing people!"

"Yes, I suppose that's true. But everyone has to die sometime. And if a gorgon isn't trying to kill people, I just don't think it seems fair to punish her for what she is. If she wasn't looking for a person, and the person wasn't looking for her, and she turns them to stone, then it's just an unfortunate accident—like if someone dies in a storm."

"But that's different, because you can't do anything about storms. There's no way to kill them. I could kill a gorgon, and then it wouldn't kill anybody else, so don't you think that's the right thing to do?"

"I can see why you would say that. But it seems awfully sad to kill someone just because of something that they can't help but be. I don't think its right to hurt people just because you're scared of them."

"But gorgons aren't people, they're monsters! They have snake hair!"

"So? There are a lot of funny looking wizards too. What makes someone a person? How do you know that we're not the monsters and the gorgons are the people? Or maybe the only real people are flobberworms, and we're just too stupid to understand what they're saying to us!"

"Luna, flobberworms can't talk."

"But how do you know that? What if they talk in some way that we just don't understand? Maybe they talk using smells."

"How could you use smells to talk?"

"Exactly! We couldn't. But maybe flobberworms can, and we don't understand them because we don't know how to talk with smells."

"I guess, maybe? I'm still pretty sure flobberworms can't talk."

"But at least you're not completely sure anymore. It might not be flobberworms, but someday, something you're completely sure of is going to turn out to be wrong. It's always good to have a bit of doubt. My mum used to say that."

Luna paused, and Ginny wasn't sure what she was thinking. Her mother had died only the previous year, and Ginny knew it had hurt Luna a lot. She didn't usually show it, though—Ginny had never seen Luna cry. This made it hard for Ginny to know how to help her friend. She used to try get Luna to talk about how she was feeling, but Luna never seemed willing to talk about her own feelings, preferring instead to tell stories about the things she had done with her mother and the fun they'd had together, and it always left Ginny feeling uncomfortable, because she thought that Luna was trying too hard to be happy when she should really just be sad. Now, however, when the topic of Pandora Lovegood came up, Ginny usually tried to change the subject.

In this case, that was especially easy to do, since Ginny already had a subject that she'd been looking to bring up with Luna.

"Hey Luna, what do you think of muggles?"

"I think they smell nice." Luna smiled. Ginny tried not to get distracted from the question she was actually interested in.

"Okay, but what do you think about the Statute of Secrecy and the way that we hide from muggles? Do you think that we're doing the right thing by not ever even talking to them?"

"I think that the way we deal with muggles is a lot better than the way we deal with gorgons."

"Huh? How are those even related?"

"We have the Statute of Secrecy because most wizards are afraid of muggles, because they think they're monsters, just like gorgons. But hiding from people you're scared of is better than going out and killing them."

"But muggles aren't monsters! We don't have to hide from them or kill them! Why can't we just be friends?"

"What is a monster, Ginny?"

"What do you mean? A monster is a monster—something that looks scary and hurts people."

"So muggles aren't monsters because they look like us?"

"Yeah, if they look like us, and they talk like us, and they get along with each other, they can't be too bad, right?"

"Voldemort looked like us and talked like us, and got along with his death eaters, and he was pretty bad."

"Luna! You can't say his name!"

"Okay, 'I-know-who' was a lot like us, and still a monster."

"So you think muggles are monsters?"

"I think we disagree about what a monster is."

"Okay, but we're not talking about monsters, we're talking about muggles. Do you really think we should be hiding from them?"

"I don't think we should stop hiding from them."

"Why not?" Ginny was getting frustrated.

"I think that would end up with dead people."

"Why? We can just explain that we can help them, and that we want to be friends, and then they can be friends with us."

"Not everyone wants to be friends, Ginny. To muggles we're the monsters. Some of them would want to hurt us, and then wizards would want to hurt them because of it, and we'd keep getting revenge until everyone was dead, or worse. It would be like what happened with the elves: they were afraid of wizards, because we used wands to kill things, so some of the elves broke some wizards' wands, and then wizards were afraid of elves, and because elves didn't have wands to break, some wizards killed some of them. And then because wizards were killing them, elves started killing wizards, until eventually wizards wiped out almost all the elves, and magically bound the rest of them to be bound to a wizard and never able to disobey him or leave his house!"

"I'm pretty sure that's not true."

"No, house-elves are one of the creatures I can prove are real. I've actually seen one. My dad has too."

"I know that, but I don't think that we fought a big war with elves. I'd have learned about that in history."

"Oh, there's a lot of history they don't tell you about. I bet you believe that Dumbledore beat Grindelwald too."

Ginny was about to argue that of course Dumbledore beat Grindelwald, when she realized that they had strayed from her intended topic, yet again. One of the things that frustrated her most about talking with Luna was how hard it was to get her to focus on one thing.

"Never mind that, I still don't think that hiding and killing are our only two options with muggles. Maybe they'd be scared of us if we showed them our magic, but we don't have to let them see it. Do you at least think that it would be okay to talk with muggles if we didn't tell them we were wizards?"

Given how disappointingly this conversation had been going, Ginny expected Luna to raise another objection. To her surprise, however, her friend agreed warmly.

"Oh yes, that sounds fine. I'm sure that we could learn all kinds of fascinating things from talking to muggles. I rather doubt most wizards would be interested though."

"I would be! But Mum says there's no way I could meet muggles, because they'd ask me questions I couldn't answer and they might see my accidental magic."

"I'm not sure there's such a thing as a question that can't be answered. I'm pretty sure that 'potato' is an answer to any question."

"But if I ask you where you live, and you say 'potato', it doesn't make any sense!"

"Sometimes answers don't need to make sense."

"But if I just give nonsense answers, all the muggles will think I'm weird."

"The sooner you learn not to care if people think you're weird, the happier you'll be."

"Okay, fine, but what about accidental magic. There's no way I can stop that, right?"

"Can't you just try not to get too emotional? I guess that might be hard for you, but I think you could do it."

"Don't get too emotional? Why would that help?"

"Well accidental magic is linked to strong emotions. Usually anger or fear I think. When you really want something, usually because you're really mad or really scared, you accidentally use magic to make it happen."

"I think you might be making that up. My mum never told me anything like that."

"Maybe she's not trying to stop you from doing accidental magic. There's nothing really wrong with it, unless you're trying to hide magic from muggles."

"I guess maybe. I'll ask her later. But you really think that if I could not get too angry and make stuff up when people ask me questions, that I could go and talk to muggles?"

"Yes. I don't think that there are many things that you couldn't do, Ginny, if you were really determined to do them."

"Thanks, Luna."

"Oh look, it's a butterfly!"

Feeling like she had gotten as much advice from Luna as she was likely to get today, Ginny followed her in chasing a butterfly, and they talked about other less serious things for the remainder of the day.

As suppertime drew near, Mrs. Weasley arrived to walk Ginny back. As soon as they left the Lovegoods' yard, Ginny started talking.

"Hey Mum, Luna and I were talking about accidental magic, and she said that it always happens because you get really angry or afraid. Is that true?"

"Not always, but it is true that accidental magic tends to happen when you're feeling more emotional. That's one of the ways that it protects you: If you're afraid, you probably need magic to help."

"So doesn't that mean that if you could control when you got angry, you could control your accidental magic?"

"I suppose you could, somewhat."

"So why didn't you tell me about this?"

"Controlling magic without a wand is very difficult, Ginny, and it usually requires a lot of practice with a wand to get it right. I don't think they even teach wandless magic at Hogwarts. I know how stubborn you can be Ginny. If I told you that you were more likely to perform accidental magic when you were angry, you'd keep trying to get angry to do more magic, but it wouldn't work very well and you might break something."

Ginny wanted to protest, but that did sound like something she might have done.

"Please just be patient, dear. You'll learn how to do all kinds of magic when you start at Hogwarts next year. And until then, we'll make sure that you learn everything you need to do brilliantly at school."

"Okay." Ginny said, still thinking about muggles, and the plan that had been gradually forming in her mind since talking with Luna.

As they were almost home, however, Ginny realized that there was another question that Ginny had been thinking she should ask her mother.

"Mum, why do wizards kill gorgons?"

"Why are you suddenly interested in gorgons?"

"Luna was telling me about them, and how sad it is that they get killed because of something that they can't help."

"It's good that Luna is so compassionate, Ginny, but gorgons really are dangerous. They're dark creatures, and they enjoy killing wizards. We only kill them to defend ourselves The world's a better place without evil creatures like them around."

Ginny was relieved to hear that she had been right about gorgons, they were monsters. If her mum had taken Luna's side, Ginny would have felt a bit less comfortable with the wizarding world.

* * *

A letter from Harry arrived on Thursday.

 _8 October, 1991_

 _Dear Ginny,_

 _Oliver Wood is really competitive. He's going to want the best players he can get, and he's not going to care about what year you're in or if we already have somebody playing that position. I don't know if you're good enough or not, but from the stuff you've told me, I think you should try at least. It might not seem fair to kick somebody else off the team, but I think it would also be not very fair if you had to wait until fifth year to play when the twins got to start in their second year, so I don't think you should feel bad about it. Keep practicing your hardest!_

 _I guess that showing magic to good muggles could be okay, but I don't know how you could know which muggles are good and which ones are nasty. Because even the nasty ones can be nice to each other, so you might not see them be nasty until you show them magic. It just all seems too dangerous. I'm happy to have gotten away from muggles._

 _The Floo sounds super useful, way more convenient than muggle cars or trains or planes. Do you know if we can use it at Hogwarts? We have a lot of fireplaces here. It would be pretty cool if I could just floo from one of them to Diagon Alley or the Burrow or something. Actually, why do we bother to take a train to school? Shouldn't the wizards have a faster way to get to Hogwarts?_

 _Magical healing sounds amazing. I hope I never need most of it, though. In the muggle world, when we get sick or get a cut or scrape, we usually just have to wait for it to go away. We do have medicine for some kinds of sickness, though. It works like potions, but I have no idea how they make it without magic._

 _I also didn't even know that you could do extra school after Hogwarts. What other kinds of things can you study, besides healing? Do a lot of people go on for more school? Actually, what kinds of jobs do wizards get in general?_

 _Also, I still don't feel like I'm getting anywhere with making friends. I really might just not be the kind of person who has a lot of friends. I was working with this Hufflepuff named Justin in Herbology today, and he asked me if I minded talking about my scar or about You-Know-Who, and I said I'd rather not, so then he didn't say anything and I didn't say anything for the rest of the class and it was just kind of awkward. I just don't know what to say to someone who's not my friend to make them my friend. All the things I could think of to say were stupid things, like I was thinking about asking him about some of the stuff we were talking about with muggles, but then I thought that would make me sound like a jerk like Malfoy who just cares about whether people are purebloods. So then I ended up never saying anything, and now he probably thinks I don't like him._

 _Writing with you is easy, because I just keep replying to whatever you said in the last letter and telling you about the stuff I've been doing, but I don't know how to talk to somebody I don't know in a way that doesn't make me sound weird. Sorry, I probably sound weird to you now._

 _Really though, don't worry about me. I'm still really happy here. Ron is really fun, and classes are still cool, even if they're getting pretty hard, and magic is cool, and nobody here is trying to hurt me, and you're my friend. I hope that you've been having a good week._

 _Your Friend,_

 _Harry_

Ginny immediately set to writing a reply, but paused when she realized that she might as well take advantage of the fact that she currently had Hedwig to send another letter.

 _Dear Luna,_

 _This is private, so please don't tell your dad, or especially my mum!_

 _I've been thinking more about the stuff that we talked about on Saturday. I don't know very much about muggles, and I don't think I ever will unless I can actually meet a real muggle. I'm pretty sure that I can keep from getting angry or scared, and I think I can lie well enough that they aren't going to know I'm a wizard. So I want to sneak down to the village and talk to the muggles there._

 _The problem is, I'm sure my mum would never think it's safe enough for me. So I want to pretend to be going over to your house to play, but then once I'm there go down to the village instead. Do you think you could help keep my mum and your dad from finding out?_

 _This owl is Hedwig, by the way, she can take your letter back to me._

 _Your Friend,_

 _Ginny_

"I want you to do something a little different for me, Hedwig. Could you take this letter over the hill to my friend Luna Lovegood? She's the only other young witch around here. Make sure her dad doesn't see you, though! Oh, and if she gives you a letter, bring it back to me. Can you do that?"

Hedwig bobbed her head, so Ginny have her the letter and sent her off, then went back to working on her longer letter to Harry, smiling to herself. Perhaps now, finally, she could get some firsthand information about what muggles were like. She had heard too many conflicting things from her mum, her dad, Harry, and Luna, and she felt like she had to see for herself.

* * *

Not too far away, Luna was working on her second sculpture, a hippogriff, when Hedwig delivered Ginny's letter to her. She gasped in surprise, read the letter, then went inside and showed it to her father.

* * *

Author's Note: Bah, late again. Sorry everybody. At least it's still Saturday in the US :P

Thanks to everyone who gave feedback on the last chapter, as always, I appreciate it!

Luna was interesting to write. We don't see her until OoTP, so its interesting to imagine what she might have been like back during PS. It's also tricky to make her wacky and different without making her crazy, and to make her be somewhat insightful, but also sometimes completely wrong. I look forward to continuing to develop her and Ginny's relationship. Apologies to whoever loves Harry, he doesn't get to say a whole lot this chapter.

I'm also curious what people think of Ginny here. She's still struggling to reconcile the conflicting things she's hearing from different people who are important to her. She's also definitely making some more questionable decisions here. You'll have to wait to see what the consequences are, of course.

Tune in next week to see the conflict start ramping up for Harry as well in a chapter that will have a bit more action than this one.


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